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Gossip of the Caribbees 


Slictc^rs of Slnglo^fflcst^Jntitati 5Life 


WILLIAM R. H. TROWBRIDGE, Jr. 

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NEW YORK 

TAIT, SONS & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 


31 Union Square, North 



Copyright, 1893, 

BY 

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J. Selwin Tait. 


THE AUTHOR 


DEDICATES THIS BOOK TO HIS AUNTS 

George BI100 

AND 

fHi'ss Caroline Crolnljn'liije, 

WHOSE TENDER INTEREST 
IN HIS LITERARY EFFORTS WILL EVER MAKE 
THEM HIS KINDEST CRITICS AND 
HIS MOST INTERESTED 


READERS, 



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CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Queen’s Representative ii 

The Boy who came from Home 23 

Mrs. Clarendon at Home 35 

Helen of Troy 55 

An Obeah Story 63 

An Old Portrait 75 

The Muse of History 91 

For the Sake of the Cross 121 

The War of the Amazons 137 

An Inconvenient Devotion 151 

Mademoiselle Narsac 163 

The Despair of Daaga 175 

Colonial Amenities 191 

The Best of Friends fall out Sometimes 203 

In the Valley of the Shadow of Death 213 

A Scientist Day by Day 225 

A Daughter of Babylon 237 

His Excellency leaves Us 267 










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PREFACE. 


I HAVE endeavored in the following sketches to give 
as accurate an idea as possible of social life in Her 
Majesty’s West Indian dominions, and if I have hurt the 
patriotic sensibilities of my compatriots, I heartily crave 
their pardon. Barbados and the adjacent colonies are 
too dear to me to wilfully cast stones at their institutions. 
Nowhere in the empire will be found a more salubrious 
climate and a more genuine hospitality. 

Every social system is faulty, and Anglo-West-Indian 
society is open to the same censure as that of all small 
communities, where gossip and individual ambition are 
dominant. I have tried to satirize without bitterness 
foibles which would be most palpable to strangers and 
which are acknowledged even by ourselves. To satisfy 
the curiosity of those who may suspect that in the por- 
trayal of such characters as Lady Marker, Lady Claude 
Vernon, or Mrs. Clarendon I had an ulterior purpose in 
attacking individuals, I beg to state that they are entirely 
imaginary as I have described them, but just as likely as 
not to be met in Anglo-West-Indian society, of which 
they are the natural products. 

W. R. H. Trowbridge, Jr. 

7 












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THE QUEEN’S REPRESENTATIVE. 


‘ Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain, 

She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.” 


The Looking Glass, Miscellaneojis Poems: Pope. 




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GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


THE QUEEN’S REPRESENTATIVE. 


The colony at first was undecided as to whether He or 
She were the Queen’s Representative, or indeed whether 
or no She were not the Queen herself; but it is quite 
certain that He was his wife’s representative. 

We had been of late unfortunate in our chief authority. 
The actual Governor was at present at Home, whither 
after sumptuous entertainments to a nautical royalty he 
had repaired to look for something more substantial than 
thanks in the gift of the Colonial Office. We were 
delighted when he had gone, and hoped that a grateful 
country would, indeed, reward him. Having written a 
book on some subject or other which had been even more 
roughly treated by the Home Press than was his name for 
the Governorship of a large self-governing colony, he had 
finally been thrust upon us, smarting under the double 
rejection of person and brain. 

Wrapped in an air of distant insulting reserve, he 
endeavored to maintain a sort of mental and social supe- 
riority over the colony, which heartily despised and 
ridiculed him. 

At his Friday receptions, instead of receiving his 
1 1 


12 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


guests graciously, he would waive them past him with a 
cynical smile, or completely ignore their presence, leav- 
ing to his charming wife the burden of nullifying his 
incivility. 

While he was at Home the Colonial Office sent out to 
act for him a Mr. Sticke, who was accompanied by his 
wife, Lady Marker, and a private secretary, Captain 
Polthorn, of the Grenadier Guards. 

Of Mr. Sticke all that we knew was that he had been 
Governor of one of the important colonies in the East 
Indies, which had petitioned the Colonial Office to super- 
sede him, and at present he was waiting for a vacancy 
equally as lucrative to occur. Of Lady Marker we knew 
that she was the daughter of a Jamaica curate, that she 
had originally married an African traveller of note, and 
that she had written pamphlets entitled “Farm Life in 
the South African Highlands,’’ and “Shall Women be 
allowed to vote in the Colonies?” A question which 
she answered strongly in the affirmative. So distin- 
guished did she feel her name to have become that upon 
her second marriage with plain Mr. Sticke she would by 
no means suffer it to be extinguished, and continued to 
be known as Lady Marker. 

If at first we were in the dark as to these interesting 
new occupants of Government House, our darkness was 
speedily made light. When Mr. Sticke was sworn in at 
the House of Assembly, to those of us who were pre- 
vented from mingling too closely in the impressive cere- 
monial, it was uncertain whether Mr. Sticke or Lady 
Marker took the oath. Future events, however, soon 
made manifest that the Government was administered by 
Lady Marker. 

A Bill was passed through the House and sent up for 


THE QUEEN'S REPRESENTATIVE. 1 3 

the Governor to sign; it was brought back by Captain 
Polthorn of the Grenadier Guards, Private Secretary, with 
His Excellency’s request that the House reconsider it. 
Amazement for a time held the entire colony speechless. 
No Governor before had ever dared to thwart the will 
of the people of this self-governing colony. The chief 
authority was stubborn and positively refused to sign. 
Could it be possible that mild and placid Mr. Sticke 
had an iron hand in a velvet glove? His halting, timid 
manner when he addressed the House was only saved 
from becoming ridiculous by the staunch support of 
Captain Polthorn of the Grenadier Guards, Private Sec- 
retary. This gentleman, resplendent in uniform, stood 
behind him. Lady Marker was also present, and actually 
sat in the Governor’s chair reviewing the tribunes of the 
people like some queen from her throne. It was useless 
to prolong such a conflict. The House, seeing his utter 
weakness and inability, could have easily taught Mr. 
Sticke his true position — that of a mere figure-head and 
leader of society. His Private Secretary, even if an officer 
of the Grenadier Guards, was not an awesome figure, 
but that haughty, power-loving woman in the Governor’s 
chair was a new element in the political atmosphere, and 
so highly charged that few, if any, would care to analyze 
it, lest in the process it should explode. 

Yes, that rumor must have been true, that in the large 
colony they had just quitted she had kept the Chief Jus- 
tice out of his salary for a year. Lady Marker was 
evidently a dangerous factor with which to deal. Now, 
politics with us at the best are but a poor apology for the 
real article, and, under the most favorable circumstances. 
Lady Marker could scarcely shape them to any appre- 
ciable ends. Soon finding that her power could be more 


14 


GOSSIP OF THE C A FIB BEES. 


decidedly felt in the social sphere, she instituted those 
new regulations in etiquette to which the colony gave 
the name of the Code Marker. 

Her first attempt to put these remarkable laws into 
effect was on the occasion of a large Subscription Ball. 
Now, the Subscribers’ Secretary, of course, sent an invi- 
tation to Mr. Sticke, Lady Marker, and Captain Polthorn 
of the Grenadier Guards, Private Secretary, and at the 
bottom in one corner of the invitation was inscribed 
‘‘R. S. V. P.” 

Now, these four apparently harmless initial letters were 
to Lady Marker like a red rag to a bull. I hope that her 
ladyship will pardon the metaphor, should she ever see 
these pages, but it serves more truly than any I can think 
of, to describe the state of affairs between Government 
House and the colony. With that insolent ‘^R. S. V. P.” 
staring her in the eyes and infuriating her (how could 
any one dare to expect a representative of the Queen to 
answer an invitation, such insular ignorance was insult- 
ing to the Queen’s Majesty!), she rushed upon the torea- 
dor of a Subscribers’ Secretary, and tossed him aloft to 
the public gaze on her horns of a Polthorn. Or, in other 
words, the astonished Secretary received the following 
missive: — ■ 

GovernmExNT House, Tuesday. 

Mr. Sticke and Lady Marker have requested Captain Polthorn of 
the Grenadier Guards, Private Secretary, to inform the Subscribers 
that they will have much pleasure in accepting their kind invitation to 
a Ball on the 20th, on the following conditions: — 

(i) That dancing shall not commence until the representatives of 
Government House arrive; (2) that on the entrance of either or both 
Mr. Sticke and Lady Marker the band shall play “God save the 
Queen ” and the whole assembly stand; (3) that the Ball shall open 
with a state set of lancers in which, of course, only the chiefs of dc- 


THE QUEEN'S REPRESENTATIVE. I 5 

partments and their wives shall dance ; (4) that a dais be erected 
where their Excellencies shall sit. 

(Signed by command) 

Captain Polthorn, Grenadier Guards, 

Private Secretary, 

A private letter to the Subscribers’ Secretary also 
informed him that this Mercury of a Polthorn considered 
it would have been in better taste to have first ascertained 
from him whether the date of the Ball would be conven- 
ient to their Excellencies. Had Government House, in 
lieu of playing with politics, a game the meaning of 
which was hardly understood in the West Indies, en- 
deavored to throttle society and to accomplish its ends 
thrown a dynamite bomb into it, it could not have 
excited it more thoroughly. 

A council of state was immediately called to consider 
these proposals, and, by an overwhelming majority, it was 
decided, first, that they could not be entertained; and 
second, that a polite note should be returned to Captain 
Polthorn, Grenadier Guards, Private Secretary, informing 
him of the inability of the Subscribers to accept any 
conditions at all. 

This was the first passage at arms between society and 
Lady Marker. 

On the other hand, the Code Marker was forced easily 
upon the garrison, which, for various reasons, did not 
dare to offend Government House. Lady Marker’s and 
Mr. Sticke’s exits and entrances at the garrison were 
heralded with as much eclat as the most pomp-loving 
Queen’s representative could desire. An estrangement 
sprung up between Government House and the Island. 
Mr. Sticke and Lady Marker only entertained officials, 
and stigmatized the planters, who were some of the best 


1 6 GOSS/J^ OF THE CARlBBEES. 

born people in the colony as farmers who, in England, 
would not be recognized. 

Foiled in politics, defied in society. Lady Marker’s 
proud spirit yearned for revenge, and she desired to quit 
the post. Genial Mr. Sticke, fond of billiards and the 
relaxation of his club, would fain have escaped for a time 
from his ambitious spouse and his elegant Private Secre- 
tary, but the eagle eye of the Queen’s true Representative 
was on him, and he fidgeted at home, apparently evilly 
disposed toward the colony he governed. Now, hitherto 
the occupants of Government House, even the most un- 
popular, have always been most unobtrusive and demo- 
cratic in their bearing. The pomp and circumstance of 
state, therefore, which Lady Marker introduced were at 
first received with surprise and disgust, and finally ended 
in a rout of society from the presence of her ladyship. 

The Races ever continue to be the most popular event 
of the year with us, and draw out immense crowds of the 
blacks as well as the fine fieur oi the colony. This year 
our actual Governor absent at Home, following prece- 
dent, sent out a very fine silver cup to be raced for in 
that famous and always exciting race known as the “ Gov- 
ernor’s Cup.” The Acting-Governor was to present this 
to the winner. The day was far advanced, and the box in 
the Grand Stand with its gay draperies flapping in the 
wind lay empty. The judges were in a quandary: should 
they race the Governor’s Cup, or wait until it pleased 
their Excellencies to appear? The garrison judges were 
for waiting, the native for racing. The latter decided 
the point. When the excitement of the race was at its 
height, the strains of the national anthem were barely 
heard in the eagerness of the moment, as Mr. Stkke, 
Lady Marker, and Captain Polthorn, Grenadier Guards, 


THE QUEEN'S REPRESENTATIVE. 


i; 


Private Secretary, drove up in state on the course. A 
Zouave of the W. I. Regiment, with drawn sabre, opened 
the carriage door, and the party entered the Grand Stand 
and were seated almost before any one knew they had 
come. When they were told that the race just run was the 
Governor’s Cup, Lady Marker’s wrath was unbounded. 
She was for refusing to present the Cup, and expressed her 
opinions in similar womanly fashion. The insult to 
their position, as well as to themselves, she was heard 
to say, was public and pointed, and should be resented 
in like manner. Better counsels prevailed, however, and 
Mr. Sticke presented the Cup in a formal little speech, 
evidently learned by heart, and resembling his wife’s lit- 
erary style. No sooner were the feeble cheers for the 
Governor and Lady Marker over, than, attended by the 
brilliantly uniformed Polthorn, who looked quite vexed 
at having to lose the fun of the Races, the party drove off 
the course back to Government House, no more missed 
than if they had never come at all. 

A few days afterward a telegram was received from the 
Colonial Office raising His Acting Excellency to the 
important Governorship of a large neighboring colony. 
Lady Marker was raised to a seventh heaven of exulting 
, pride. Here was an acknowledgment of hers or Mr. 
Sticke’s ability; here was a wide field to plough with her 
own political ploughshare ; here was a chance to show this 
colony of ours, made up of boors less appreciative of the 
forms of etiquette than the savages of her South African 
Highlands, that she was deemed by a mighty empire fit 
to rule an important dependency. 

Now, reader, if you have ever lived in the Colonies, you 
will know how absolutely dependent society is upon Gov- 
ernment House. The deadlock that existed with us was 


1 8 GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 

becoming so intolerable that the approaching departure 
of Lady Marker was hailed with joy. But Lady Marker 
could and would have hurt us infinitely, had she not also 
hurt herself, by accepting for Mr. Sticke, for he, poor 
man, was a puppet in her really clever hands, the govern- 
ment of our colony of which he had the choice. The 
Queen’s representative parted from us with mutual dis- 
taste, to be heard of but twice more. First, in a biting, 
witty article in a Home review, entitled “Three Months 
of Official Life in a West Indian Colony,” which, cruelly, 
but cleverly, dissected our whole colonial, political, and 
social life, treating our customs in a friendly-satirical and 
an admonitory-satirical way, that left us unable to reply, 
and made us the laughing-stock of the entire West 
Indies. 

This was a well -aimed and painful blow, for we West 
Indians are very sensitive about our peculiarities. 
Some of us to this day have never forgiven Lady Marker, 
for it was she undoubtedly who had thus held us up to 
ridicule. 

The second instance was a direct insult to our institu- 
tions. I was standing on the Pier at Southampton on 
my way to the colony from Home; around me were 
numerous boxes labelled “Mr. Sticke;” “ H. E. Arthur 
Vivian Sticke, C. M. G. ; ” “The Lady Marker;” “Her 
Excellency Lady Marker;” “Captain Fitz-Connaught 
Polthorn, Grenadier Guards, Private Secretary to their 
Excellencies,” and one small parcel daubed “Sticke.” 
These distinguished people were on their way to their 
dominons, and, as they held aloof from the passengers, 
they had a thoroughly dull, stupid time by themselves. 
Once, indeed, Mr. Sticke did saunter up for a chat with 
some of us, but was speedily sought by the ever-attendant 


THE QUEEN'S REPRESENTATIVE. 


19 


Polthorn, with “Her ladyship would like to speak to 
your Excellency,” and dragged back to stupidity and 
boredom. 

One of their subjects told me that he had, on the best 
authority, the report that Mr. Sticke had been informed 
at the Colonial Office that unless Lady Marker could be 
persuaded to curb her antagonism to the Executive 
Council of the colony, it would put a stop to his further 
promotion. I judged from this that we were not the 
only colony harassed by her overweening love of power. 

On arriving at the port of their old acting Governor- 
ship, Lady Marker, through Polthorn, requested the 
captain to hoist the ensign of Commander of the Port. 
The captain had no right to do this, as the man-of-war on 
the station lay at anchor in the harbor, and to its captain 
only did this privilege belong; but Lady Marker consid- 
ered that a Governor was of more importance outside the 
boundaries of his government than a captain of a man-of- 
war on his own station, and insisted, and the flag floated 
proudly from the mast. This was intended as an insult 
to the colony, but we were speedily avenged. The man- 
of-war captain sent off an armed boat’s crew with orders 
to cut down the usurping emblem of his prerogative. 
Thus Lady Marker was snubbed publicly, for every one 
knows that a Governor is of no more importance out of 
his own government than a Colon darky in DeLesseps’ 
ditch. 

This was the last of the Marker Administration ; but I 
believe the semi-imbecile Mr. Sticke has since then been 
knighted, and Lady Marker now styles herself Lady 
Sticke-Marker, and is soothed by the thought that the 
colony of which she is the head, looking upon her as a 
Queen’s representative in reality, treats her as it would 


20 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


the Queen herself. She has also made Mr. Sticke’s 
power, and thus her own, felt politically by quarrelling 
with the Attorney-General and sundry other depart- 
mental chiefs, causing them to resign or do the Govern- 
mental bidding. So her ladyship is happy. 

That she may long continue to delude the colony she 
rules is my ardent wish, since that colony seems to 
delight in the delusion. 


THE BOY WHO CAME FROM HOME. 


“Yea, once, Immanuel’s orphaned cry his universe hath shaken — 
It went up single, echoless, ‘ My God, I am forsaken ! ’ ” 


Cowpers Grave: Mrs. Browning. 


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THE BOY WHO CAME FROM HOME. 


All the West Indian colonies are filled with young 
men from Home. Home is the purveyor-royal to the 
Empire, and furnishes the public and private offices; 
planters and overseers, engineers and commissioners ad 
libitu77i. Of all the colonies in Her Britannic Majesty’s 
dominions, none show the effects of this Home exodus 
to a greater degree than Demerara. 

It started as the supposed highway to El Dorado, 
and, like a modern Minotaur, for centuries devoured the 
energy and ambition of Home in its fever-lurking jungles 
and forests. 

However, as the present century advanced, civilization 
began to conquer the barbarism of soil and climate, and 
to-day Demerara is, par excellence, the richest colony, 
and Georgetown the most important city, in the West 
Indian Empire. 

Three-quarters of the people one meets in society are 
transitory, and only come out here till they make their 
fortunes. In time the merchant returns to Europe to live 
in the style of a nabob; the chaps in the Government 
offices retire on good pensions; the planters leave their 
sugar-principalities to the care of attorneys to remit 
their vast revenues; and the gold-seekers, in yearly 

23 


24 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


increasing numbers, carry back to the Old World for- 
tunes and ruined health from the deadly placer-mines. 

As is to be expected in a new and rapidly growing 
community, society is composed of mixtures of race, 
creed, and quality. His Excellency, my Lord Blueblood, 
an impoverished but premier peer of one of the three 
kingdoms, to whom the Governorship has been given to 
bolster up a decrepit name and fortune, finds himself on 
an equality with Mr. Goodrich, the son of a Scotch ex- 
crofter and a Surinam woman, whose immense fortune is 
being made by retailing salt fish, rice, and manure. Birth 
counts for nothing here, and mulatto heiresses daily 
marry the poor young men from Home. 

As the society is mixed, so is it fast, and, being fast, 
is naturally cruel and selfish. Life, long or short, but 
at any cost merry, is the aim — merry, and with the con- 
science dead. 

Of course, scandal or gossip, what you will, is the 
spice most in demand, and gives to colonial life its zest. 

Yesterday Dicky Jones, of the Public Works’ Office, 
after months of scandalous attention to young Mrs. 
Prettyman, ran off with her to Trinidad, to cause a 
seven days’ wonder, and then both to be forgotten. To- 
day Condor, who made a fortune at the gold-fields and is 
on his way Home to enjoy it, died of the yellow-fever, 
and will be hurried underground at once. To-morrow, 
young Cliveden Delamoor, a well-paid and well-placed 
overseer on a lonely Essequibo plantation, will be 
shipped Home, dying of softening of the brain, brought 
on by gin bitters and whiskey. 

To such a society and all its temptations came Billy 
Pearson, a lad of nineteen, fresh from the refinement 
and hardy health of a Devonshire village. 


THE BOY WHO CAME FROM HOME. 


25 


The tears that had fallen so bitterly when his mother 
and sisters had bade him a last good-by on Southampton 
Pier were scarcely dry on his cheeks, when, with a big 
choking lump in his throat, and a supreme effort to hide 
his emotion from his fellow-passengers, he had started 
out alone to seek his fortune in that Greater Britain 
beyond the sea. 

He was a bank clerk, a junior in the great Caribbee 
Bank of Georgetown, with two hundred pounds a year — 
really splendid, you know, for a boy of nineteen. Well, 
at first he was terribly homesick, as was natural. Accus- 
tomed to the petting of mother and sisters, how could 
you expect him not to yearn for the dear old Devonshire 
home ? The noisy, lazy negroes and coolies, and the 
big bustling town where he was friendless, were all so 
new to him. 

For two months he moped, and I fear this heartache 
for Home caused him to smudge his ledger with many 
an unseen tear. Every mail that left Georgetown carried 
his long, dreary letters; but at the end of the two months 
he began to get accustomed to the difference in life, and 
to make friends. 

Now, there is nothing more delightful to a boy, and 
nothing more ruinous to the average character, than to be 
made much of by society and treated as if he were a man 
of the world. That’s the reason why so many boys from 
Home become spoiled by the life out here. 

The Manager of the Bank, as in duty bound, invited 
Billy to his house to dine, and there he met a lady who 
asked him to use her tennis-lawn as his own (she. had a 
daughter). So in a short time he became known, and 
life was not so miserable, nor his letters so dreary. His 
boarding-house was not at all the place for a young boy 


26 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBERS. 


to live in. It was eminently respectable, as that word 
was understood by the Deinerara mind, but to a well- 
regulated English mind, utterly disreputable. Life there 
was a revelation to Billy. 

The wife of an engineer of a gold-mine on the Massa- 
runi, whose husband came into town once in three months 
for a fortnight, initiated Billy into the workings of that 
mysterious organism, the heart. She was years older 
than he, but made much of him and referred to his opin- 
ion on all sorts of matters, which was very flattering to a 
boy. 

The men in the house told him he was a gay deceiver, 
and was beginning young to flirt with other men’s wives. 
This flattered the sinful pride of his heart, and made him 
feel old and deep and a thorough man-of-the-world. 

Finally, he used to stroll out with her on the sea-wall 
of nights and talk maudlin sentiment, for he was very 
young, Billy was. On their return he would order a 
petit sotiper of champagne and pdte'-de foie-g?'as, or, rather, 
the engineer’s wife would order it and Billy would pay 
for it, and then, when very elated, he would join the men 
in the house and play poker till the dawn broke, feeling 
very btasd and important. 

Now, this sort of thing in the best of climates is not 
conducive to health, and in Demerara, to a fresh-blooded 
young Englishman, was simply suicidal. Well, Billy 
lived very fast, and spent all his money in cards and 
supplying the wants of the engineer’s wife. He began 
to imagine he loved her and that life was very hard. 
Being a boy, he had no business to feel like this, but 
there was no one in the colony to give him friendly 
counsel without fear of offending him. So he went on 
his course unheeded, save some one’s saying, — 


THE BOY WHO CAME FROM HOME. 


27 


‘‘Young Pearson’s going a pretty pace! ” or, “Pearson, 
old chap, pull in a bit; this sort of thing kills in 
Demerara.” 

At the end of nine months you would not have known 
Billy Pearson for the same fresh-looking English boy 
that had come out to the colony. Late hours, enlivened 
by altogether too much whiskey and the wearying excite- 
ment of poker, left their mark on him. He was still a 
boy, but I doubt if his own people at Plome would have 
known him. His pale, hard face would, now and then, 
light up with the old frank expression; but it filled one 
with pity to see that flash of boyish frankness flit across 
his hardened face. 

His letters Home grew fewer and briefer, and the 
remittances altogether stopped. The engineer’s wife 
and poker were too great a drain to allow any spare cash 
to slip from them. 

About this time he had a letter from Home saying his 
mother was dead, and that her last words were of him 
and her longing to see her boy again, God bless him 
and keep him! There came with the letter, carefully 
wrapped in a little box, an old gold locket that his mother 
always wore. Billy, on leaving England, had begged 
her for it as a keepsake. He always associated her with 
the locket, as she had worn it ever since he could remem- 
ber; but she would not part with it, for it contained a 
picture, the only one she had, of Billy. 

Poor fellow! It was a great shock to him and sobered 
him for a while. A feeling of remorse seized him, and 
a wild longing for the purity and peace and innocence of 
the little Devonshire village. 

We all know how life prods us up to its reality and 
intrudes on the most sacred thoughts. 


28 


GOSSIP OF THE CAP/P BEES. 


People condoled with him on his mother’s death, but 
when they found he had eschewed gin bitters and the 
card-table, and even avoided the engineer’s wife, they 
laughed at him and said, — 

“Turned saint, Pearson? Take a cocktail, old chap, 
and make a sixth at poker, just to oblige,” or, — 

“ Billy, trying to shake the missis ? A pretty tough 
time you’ll have of it: the old girl’s devilish sly and 
has a winning way with her.” 

So Billy fought out his battle one night in his dingy 
bedroom that looked down on an area where the coolie 
cook squabbled all night with her husband over a family 
affair. The result he came to was not surprising for a 
boy. He argued that life out here was not what it was at 
Home; that God, if there were a God, was very cruel. 
He longed to lead a better life, and for the old days at 
Home. He could have been a good man there, sur- 
rounded, as I e would have been, by loving influences; 
but Fate wouldn’t give him this, but had brought him 
where he was and made him what he was. 

Fie had to live among his present companions, there- 
fore he would get what pleasure he could out of them. 
He would go back to the old reckless life, and if he died, 
as he supposed he should, of the fever, ah, well ! it was 
only one wretch less in an unhappy world. 

A boy of nineteen has absolutely no right to argue like 
this ; but then, you see, Billy was fighting his battle alone 
and without any one to help him. 

He rejoined the old life and went down-hill rapidily, 
but it is a long road that has no turning. The Races 
brought Billy to the turning of his. 

The Demerara Races are a great and important event 
in the colonial calendar. Billy and two of his friends 


THE BOY WHO CAME FROM HOME. 


29 


made a party to attend them with the engineer’s 
wife. 

He was very much excited, and bet heavily on the 
D’Urban Cup. 

He lost! 

The expression on his face when his horse came in last 
was so terrible that people pitied him. 

“I was mad!” he cried. ^‘Well, I’m done for now: 
I’ve bet a hundred pounds on that race, and I haven’t 
got it,” and he pressed his hands to his head fever- 
ishly. 

In his excitement Billy had foolishly made his wager 
with a Portuguese rum-seller, instead of betting more 
wisely among his own people. 

These Portuguese have no sense of propriety, and the 
safest way is to have nothing to do with them. 

The man came up to the carriage later on and told 
Billy he could have until the end of the week to settle, 
but that he could not extend the time. Billy muttered 
something, opened a bottle of champagne, and drank 
freely of it. The engineer’s wife begged him not to 
mortify her, and was rather cross. She began to feel 
that she had got all there was to get out of the boy. He 
was not likely to be of further use to her. 

It was soon rumored about the Race-course that young 
Pearson had been drinking heavily and had lost a hun- 
dred pounds on the D’Urban, but no one thought more 
of it till afterwards. Of course, the first thing Billy did 
was to endeavor to raise the money, and now he learned 
a lesson not pleasant for a boy to learn. He took it as a 
matter of course that his friends would lend him the 
money between them. But they all made excuses of some 
sort, flimsy enough for even a boy to see through. One 


30 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


or two of them read him a moral lesson on the evils of 
gambling and of a fast life in general. 

Billy was a boy well brought up; he had a high sense 
of honor, and would have helped a friend at a great per- 
sonal sacrifice. When he discovered that the money was 
not forthcoming from the men he had called his friends 
and through whose influence he had come to this pass, 
the iron entered his soul and he hated mankind. 

Verily it’s a sad strait for a boy to be in, to find in 
his hour of need that his friends prove false. 

This was his first lesson. He staked his last chance 
and solicited the engineer’s wife’s aid. This lady owed a 
great deal of her amusement to Billy, and the foolish boy 
loved her in his chivalrous and honorable way, worthier of 
a purer woman. But the engineer’s wife, when she found 
that she was asked to do him a good turn and show him 
some appreciation, thought it a capital chance to cut 
adrift from him entirely. He had ceased to amuse her, 
so she told Billy some very cruel things. 

This was his second lesson. The veil was suddenly 
and rudely torn from his eyes, and he was compelled to 
look upon a fury, a monster of frightful aspect. 

He thought of his parting at Southampton with his 
dear ones; of his sickening longing to see Home again; 
of the mother dying with her last words for him; of the 
heart-broken sisters, who looked on him as their sheet- 
anchor. Then the madness of his life in the colony, the 
wild, reckless dissipation, ending in the complete deser- 
tion of his friends and the murder of his love, froze his 
heart and made him long for death. Poor boy! life was 
showing him its darkest and cruelest side. 

Most men would have taken the matter carelessly: 
made the Portuguese chap wait, or come to some sort of 


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THE BOY WHO CAME FROM HOME. 


31 


arrangement with him ; but Billy was a boy and a sensi- 
tive one, and the picture of his squandered life, which 
had suddenly been revealed to him, became a hideous 
reality, and troubled him far more than the question of 
settling with his creditor. 

That night in his room, after the engineer’s wife had 
dispelled his illusion of her, he revolved all these 
thoughts in his mind, and another one too. His honor 
had been questioned by the Manager of the Bank. He 
had been told that the life he had been leading was so 
notorious that he must resign his position of responsi- 
bility in the Bank. The Manager had talked long and 
seriously to him, but Billy was in such a depressed state 
that he magnified his sins and his wrongs, till his heart 
could stand the strain no longer. 

The engineer’s wife had just returned from a dinner at 
Government House, when she heard the report of a pistol, 
and the despairing face of her boy-admirer came before 
her and made her shiver in her satin and diamonds. The 
men in the house at their nightly game of poker heard 
the report, and looked at each other guiltily. The coolie 
cook in the area heard it, and in the dawn, when she came 
to light her fires, noticed a buzzing and humming of flies 
overhead, flitting in and out of Billy’s window. She 
remembered the report of the pistol heard on the previous 
night, and, alarmed by the ominous murmur of the flies, 
she went to her mistress. 

When they broke open Billy’s door the flies were buzz- 
ing in thick masses about a boyish form on the floor. 

On examination the body was found shot through the 
heart. One hand clasped convulsively a pistol, and on 
his breast lay an old gold locket, open and suspended 


32 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


from his neck by a tiny gold chain. The picture it con- 
tained brought tears to many eyes. It was a picture of 
Billy when a little chap — a frank, handsome, boyish 
face so different from the stiffened, wretched mass on 
the floor. This note was found upon his pincushion: — 

“ Whoever you are that reads this, if there be any humanity or 
honor left in the world, heed a dead man’s last request. Let my 
sisters never know that their brother died a suicide’s death. Tell 
them I died thinking of them and mother and the old days at Home.” 

Poor Billy! in his last fearful battle with despair, he 
had been worsted; and in his loneliness and anguish 
he had sought death as the great consoler — a sad and 
awful conclusion for any boy to reach. 


MRS. CLARENDON AT HOME. 


“ O, will ye choose to hear the news, 
Bedad, I cannot pass it o’er : 

I’ll tell you all about the Ball 
To the Naypaulase Ambassador. 
Begor ! this fHe all balls does bate 
At which I’ve worn a pump, and I 
Must here relate the splenthor great 
Of the ‘Oriental Company.’” 


Mr. Malony's Account of the Ball: Thackeray. 


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MRS. CLARENDON AT HOME. 


The silver salver on the tiny bamboo-table in Mrs. 
Clarendon’s drawing-room was heaped up with bits of 
pasteboard, with the names of the whole station engraved 
thereon. None were missing, from His Excellency 
down to Bobbie Walker of the 2d West, who had a pro- 
pensity for telling all new acquaintances, on introduc- 
tion, about a fabulous number of sun-strokes he had had 
in Sierra Leone. No one ever thought of doubting the 
accuracy of these tales, as the result was so very appar- 
ent. The increasing contributions to her salver were 
watched by Mrs. Clarendon with especial interest, for on 
the filling of it depended the colony’s sanction to her 
claim to social recognition. 

One day, some three months after their arrival at the 
colony, Mrs. Clarendon, in all the glory of her sixty 
years and sixteen stone, holding in her lap the overflow- 
ing salver, the sign of social approval, remarked to her 
husband, 

“ Captain, what do you say to a dance? Every one 
has called, and it would be a clever way to pay off the 
invitations we have had since we came here.’^ 

‘‘I am indifferent; you always do as you please, Ma- 
tilda,’^ replied Captain Clarendon. 

35 . 


36 GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 

^‘Well, then, that’s settled. Mamma, if you will help 
me count these names, we will send out invitations for 
an At Home, with dancing, for the 30th,” added Mrs. 
Clarendon, energetically addressing a dear old lady at 
the extreme end of the room. This active old lady, 
whose bright eyes, soft skin and youthful figure belied 
her eighty years, and her daughter were soon busy writing 
the invitations. 

The whole station had the pleasure of accepting them, 
and the dance at the Clarendons’ was the topic of conver- 
sation in Barbados society for the next ten days. 

Captain Clarendon was the new provost-marshal and 
a retired captain of marines. He must have seen a vast 
amount of life to judge by his store of personal anecdotes, 
which all began, “When / was in India, when / was 
at Coomassie, or when / was at the Cape.” He was a 
hale, hearty old chap, nearing seventy ; his white hair 
and whiskers, florid complexion, and military bearing 
gave him a rather distinguished appearance. He was 
one of those easy-going men so easily managed by their 
strong-willed womankind — a figure-head whose preroga- 
tives are not intended to be used. 

He became a general favorite when everybody got to 
know him, and learned the honesty and heartiness that 
lay beneath his inveterate habit of rambling over the 
events of a long-distant past, in which he always played 
a prominent part. I think of the three people compris- 
ing his household, he was the most popular, in spite of 
his being the most matter-of-fact. 

They made their first appearance in the West Indies 
ten years before, when the Captain came from no one 
knew where, and to take, no one knew by what influence, 
the post of Administrator of Anguilla. Most of us, even 


J/J^S. CLARENDOiV AT HOME. 


37 


West Indians, were ignorant of that undesirable station, 
except that it was a sandy, reefy islet, destitute almost 
entirely of vegetation, and with a mere handful of blacks 
on it, who might be pirate-smugglers or fisher-folk. The 
only white people were the Administrator’s family, and 
life there must have been incomparably dull. 

Once a month a man-of-war came from a neighboring 
station with mails and to see that, in the mean time, the 
blacks had not massacred the Administrator. Ah! how 
that monthly visit must have been looked forward to! 
How the spy-glasses must have searched the horizon the 
day the ship was expected 1 How greedily those papers 
and letters must have been devoured, rays of light from a 
lost civilization ! How welcome the faces of compatriots 1 
and how the ladies plied their little social arts again, 
almost forgotten by disuse! With what heavy hearts 
must they have watched the ship sail away from that 
desolate reef, leaving them, the product of nineteen cen- 
turies of civilization, prisoners in solitary confinement 
rather than high officials in the service of Her Britannic 
Majesty! 

One would have thought that Mrs. Clarendon would 
have preferred to have forgotten those days. On the 
contrary, she gave you to understand that it was the 
halcyon-time of her life, and that Madame I’Administra- 
trice had held quite a court, till it really seemed as if she 
thought that she had occupied as high a position in 
Anguilla as if the Captain had been Governor of an 
important colony. 

In spite of her age, which must have been at least 
sixty, and her huge proportions, which caused her to 
waddle rather than walk, she was very fond of society. 
She was asked and went everywhere, and was one of the 


38 


GOSSIP OF THE C A RIB BEES. 


greatest gossips we ever had in the colony, though she 
gossiped chiefly about herself and her titled friends 
at Home. Her conversation was fluent, transparently 
flattering, and filled with reminiscence. This last fea- 
ture was intended to impress one with her importance, for 
she was fond, to a degree, of talking of people as if she 
had been very intimate with them. 

You are privileged to doubt the friendly relations of 
people who tell you quite casually, but frequently, how 
much trouble Lady So and So had last year with her 
servants, or how many people she had down at her box 
in Scotland for the grouse-shooting. 

To do Mrs. Clarendon justice, however, she was gen- 
erally amusing, and you may be sure she found plenty of 
listeners. 

“Trevorley?” she said, on being introduced to* me, 
“ I know the name well. Are you one of the Devonshire 
Trevorleys? The night before Raglan sailed for the 
Crimea I met Sir Algernon Trevorley at dinner with him 

at the Countess of D ’s. In fact, he took me into 

dinner. Such a charming man! Poor dear fellow, at 
Inkerman he lost an arm and both legs, and received the 
Victoria Cross. Of course, he was your father or kins- 
man or something of that sort; I never saw two people 
more alike! ’’ and she turned to chatter glibly with some 
one else. 

From that day I was a great favorite of hers; and 
though I was not in the least related to the warrior who 
was so fearfully mutilated at Inkerman, her fertile imagi- 
nation at once made him a near relative. I have often 
been regaled with what happened that momentous night 
before Raglan sailed for the Crimea, till I have wondered 
frequently on sleepless nights how many covers were 


M/^S. CLARENDON AT HOME. 


39 


laid at that dinner, what Mrs. Clarendon was doing 
there on such an occasion, and if it were possible that 
the Army and Navy, as well as both Houses of Parlia- 
ment, could have been accommodated in Lady D ’s 

house. 

She made you think you were her most intimate 
friend. 

She told you how, at sixteen, she was married to the 
Chevalier Pozzo; how they thought she would go mad 
when he died, and how they had cut off her beautiful 
hair. Then she would show you a small full-length 
portrait of herself at the* age of twenty-one, painted by 
the Chevalier himself, with his name in one corner: a 
portrait of a young girl with masses of golden hair, and 
a slim, lissome figure in full evening dress of a by-gone 
date, with a plentiful display of beautifully moulded bust 
and arms. It was difficult to believe that Mrs. Clarendon 
could ever have looked like this really charming portrait 
of her youth. That portrait hung in a. conspicuous place 
in the drawing-room, and hardly any one ever entered her 
house without hearing of the Chevalier and his work of 
art. She would also descant on how, as a delicate con- 
sumptive widow, she met the Captain ; how enamoured of 
her he became ; the quiet wedding in Florence, and 
Mamma’s fainting in the church at the imaginary ap- 
pearance of Pozzo come from the other world to forbid 
the banns. 

She said she had always told the Captain that Mamma 
must live with them; and the Captain, what a dear, fool- 
ish old thing he was! but oh, so different from Pozzo! 
And then with a sigh she would affirm how much better 
it was that Pozzo was dead than that he should have 
lived to see her so changed. Further she would tell how 


40 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Mamma had sympathized with her all her life, and how 
terrified she would get when this lady threatened to leave 
her and go back to England. 

The colony found out later on that these threats were 
made by the dear old lady when, after more than usual 
baiting, the patient and long-since disillusioned Captain 
would turn upon his persecutors and lash them with 
shortlived wrath. 

Notwithstanding this effusive confidence, no one ob- 
tained any clew as to who and what this singular trio 
in reality were. Mrs. Brockhart, or “Mamma’’ as the 
whole station called her behind her back, was always 
suave and gentle. Her bright and youthful manners 
were delightful, and rare in an octogenarian. No one 
ever saw her but the mind at once thought of some old 
grande dame of the Bourbon Court. No one would have 
thought of excluding her from any invitation on account 
of her age; she was an acquisition to any gathering. The 
upright, dignified old lady, with her ready wit, was a 
curb on her daughter, and her silence on the past, to 
which she never referred, had the effect of discounting the 
voluble reminiscence in which Mrs. Clarendon indulged. 
She never spoke of her past at all, and was most guarded 
in all speech pertaining to the family. She neither 
contradicted nor confirmed her daughter in regard to the 
pleasures of life in Anguilla, nor did she seem to know 
any of Mrs. Clarendon’s swell acquaintances. On the 
contrary, with charming frankness she would tell you 
that Society sought her, but she cared nothing for it, and 
that previous to her arrival at Barbados she had not 
been out since Matilda married the Captain. She was 
decidedly the mainstay of the family, and gave it balance 
and what respect it had. 


MRS. CLARENDOA^ AT HOME. 


41 


No one knew anything of their home life but w^at the 
servants said. Servants’ tales you can credit or not, as 
you please. These servants of Mrs. Clarendon used to 
say that Mrs. Brockhart ruled the whole house, and that, 
in spite of all her external suavity, she was a Tartar at 
home and had a temper, on occasion, worse than a St. 
Kitts boatman, or an Orinoco parrot. 

Now to return to my story from this rambling di- 
gression. 

The evening of the 30th was wet and dismal, and the 
sky portended heavy rains later in the night; but such a 
dance-loving community are we, that every one who had 
been invited turned up at the Clarendons’ punctually 
at 8.30. 

The wind and rain had put a veto on all attempts to 
illuminate the grounds, but the red shades in the rooms, 
as we drove up, gave a grateful impression of cheerful- 
ness inside. The Captain stood on the steps and gave 
us all a hearty hand-grasp, and passed us on to the draw- 
ing room, where Mrs. Clarendon stood waiting to receive. 
She was glittering from head to foot with paste diamonds, 
which from their enormous size seemed to make no pre- 
tence of being anything else but paste. A plentiful supply 
of rouge and powder, and display of bust and arms, made 
her, with her ponderous weight and her snowy hair, from 
which projected some ostrich plumes, a most remarkable- 
looking object. 

Standing in the recess of a window was Mrs. Brock- 
hart, very dignified and handsome, looking quite as 
youthful as her daughter. She had a word for every one, 
and put all at ease in her graceful way. A lovely picture 
she made in the brilliant ballroom, surrounded by the 
splendid uniforms of the officers, like a rare jewel in 
some old-fashioned setting. 


42 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


The supper was spread in a large tent reached from the 
house by a covered passage. The rooms were too small 
to serve for supper and dancing both. The dining and 
drawing rooms, connected by an arch, were denuded of 
their furniture, and together made a delightful ballroom. 

Reader, do you know the charm of a West Indian ball- 
room ? 

What a sensuous charm it is too! The glistening, 
polished floor, the bright uniforms of officers, inter- 
mingled with the regulation black of civilians, and the 
dainty gowns and gleaming necks of ladies, a kaleido- 
scope of brilliant color. The soft, rhythmic notes of 
music, which, falling now tenderly, sadly, seem almost 
a sigh, then rising gradually to a shriek, with quickening 
time break into some wild, elfin melody: music that 
stimulates the player in the card-room to some bold bluff, 
that sharpens the witty repartee of the thronged on- 
lookers; music that sends the mind of some chap, bored 
to death over his cigar and nervously impatient for 
supper, back into the past, to rest on some daisy-field 
in old England, where two sweethearts plighted undying 
troth with all the ardor of passionate youth, when he, 
bold and confident, bade her wait till he came back a 
colonial nabob, to lay the wealth of the East at her feet 
(mocking hope!), and she, with heaving breast and 
downcast eye, sobbed a promise to be faithful and 
true — dreams long forgotten! 

And how these Creole women dance ! How they yield 
themselves to the music! With what grace do they skim 
the polished floor, till the mind, dazed by a wealth of 
varied emotions, can scarcely separate these nymphs of 
the ballroom from the ecstatic cadences of the regi- 
mental band! 


MRS. CLARENDON A T HOME. 


43 


The Ball opened with a set of lancers, in which 
Mrs. Clarendon danced with Colonel Naseby of the 
150 th, and Captain Clarendon with Lady Julia 
Montrevor. 

Nowhere is conversation emptier and more maliciously 
personal than at a dance. Miss Belton, in .face and 
figure beyond a sneer, never resisted an opportunity to 
turn every word she uttered into a sneer. 

‘‘What a mite the Colonel looks alongside of Mrs. 
Clarendon! ’’ said she. “Don’t think me horridly scan- 
dalous, Mr. Trevorley, but isn’t Mrs. Clarendon shock- 
ing to-night? Did you ever see such a make-up? She 
must have emptied the rouge-pot on her face ; and how 
intensely vulgar all that paste-stuff is 1 I should think 
the Captain or ‘ Mamma ’ would have prevented it.” 

“Yes,” said I, “she is quite a contrast to Mrs. 
Brockhart. One would hardly think she could have 
such a daughter. I wonder what Mr. Brockhart was 
like.” 

“Oh, I have never thought of him at all; I never heard 
his name mentioned before. But how could you intimate 
that she should be like him? It is quite a reflection on 
dear Mamma’s taste.” 

“ Maybe that is why no one ever hears Mr. Brockhart’s 
name mentioned, and that, clever as she is, having made a 
bad bargain, she wants to forget it. But really, you 
know, Miss Belton, Mrs. Clarendon’s appearance is the 
only thing against her.” 

Miss Belton gave me a rather ironical smile and 
said, — 

“Certainly; pray don’t suppose that my remarks re- 
ferred to anything but her appearance. I think she is 
charming, so thoroughly unaffected, and such a favorite 


44 


GOSSIP OP THE CARIBBEES. 


of the Countess of D and all her people, which is a 

sufficient passport into anybody’s good graces.” 

Then “ Cherub” Stormont came up to her, and she 
glided away on his arm, like the poison-lizard of Trini- 
dad, the beautiful and graceful, but subtle, creature. 

The dance went olf with great spirit till supper, and 
hardly any one realized that outside the rain was pouring 
down in truly West Indian fashion. 

Mrs. Clarendon, in the dull blaze of her jewels, with 
the rouge streaky in some places from the heat, and the 
plumes in her hair drooping from the dampness, was try- 
ing to form her guests into marching order for supper. 
The musicians broke into a somewhat frisky fag-end of a 
march, and Colonel Naseby and Mrs. Clarendon, followed 
by half a dozen others, started for the tent. When lo ! 
with a demoniacal laugh, the cook burst into the ball- 
room and confronted Mrs. Clarendon, with one arm 
akimbo and the other holding a roasted guinea-bird 
spitted on a carving knife. 

She was a negress of proportions as generous as her 
mistress. Her turban, greasy and black, was cocked 
defiantly on one side of her head ; her eyes rolled wildly 
in blood-shot sockets; and her whole being exuded an 
unmistakable odor of brandy. 

For just an instant she stood on the threshold, and 
then advanced boldy into the room. 

Horror was written all over Mrs. Clarendon’s face. 
The Colonel made an attempt to disengage his partner’s 
arm, probably preparatory to dealing summarily with the 
invader; but either Mrs. Clarendon would not release 
him, or the threatening aspect of the guinea-bird made 
him, on second thoughts, more cautious. The cook came 
forward until she stood face to face with her mistress. 


M/^S. CLAI^EiVDOy A T HOME. 


45 


‘^What do you mean by disgracing me in this way? 
Mrs. Clarendon was heard to murmur ; and if a look could 
have slain, the rowdy negress would then and there have 
given up the ghost. On the contrary, rendered angry, 
she cried, — 

“What does I mean? A pretty white missis you is. 
You ’spect me one to cook de supper for all dese folk an’ 
nebber gib me a copper extra for all de trouble ! Y ’ is 
a stingy white ’ooman, y’ is. I nebber lib wid sich white 
people before. You and yer frettin’ Mamma, for all she 
grand airs, is two nasty, fightin’ ole ’oomen, an’ eef I was 
Mass’ Capen, I’d lick out a tamarind-bush on yer both, I 
would, when you dribe him out of de house wid yer 
pickin’ an’ yer quarrellin’.” 

Here she threw her warlike insignia out of a window, 
and with both arms on her hips, flounced about the room in 
imitation of Mrs. Clarendon in the lancers. So well did 
she burlesque her, that one or two giggles were with diffi- 
culty repressed. 

“Charles,” called both his wife and mother-in-law in 
loud, exasperated voices, “have that creature put out of 
the room at once,” and Mamma’s sweet, gentle face was 
quite distorted with rage. 

The Captain, who had all this time seemed as horror- 
stricken as his wife, and probably from mere force of 
habit expecting her to take the initiative, now stepped 
quickly up to the cook, who was courtesying to imagi- 
nary partners, and put his hand on her shoulder. 

“Come, get back to your kitchen at once; this is no 
place for you,” and, with some very strong words 
muttered under his breath, he tried to drag her to the 
door. 

“Yer curse me, do yer? Well, I’se ’shamed to lib wid 


46 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


sich people, I is, an’ I gib yer notice now, too, yer can 
look for anodder cook to-marrer.” 

While saying this she had wrenched herself free from 
the Captain’s grasp and had backed to the door by which 
she had entered. Her voice rose higher and higher 
with every backward step till she stood in the door- 
way, when little Bobbie Walker, he of the Sierra Leone 
sun-strokes, bravely drove back the invader by forcibly 
shutting her out. The door opened on to the stairs lead- 
ing to the kitchen, and by the co-operation of the forces 
of gravity and Captain Clarendon’s three-star Hennesy, 
with groans, screams, and thumps, cook descended to her 
saucepans, scullions, and the numerous black friends to 
whom she had extended the first-fruits of Mrs. Claren- 
don’s hospitality. 

This absurd digression from all recognized standards of 
etiquette lasted a much shorter time than it takes to tell 
it. Our hosts appeared so very much discomfited by 
this sudden onslaught upon their triumphal march to 
supper, that all the guests were quite subdued in their 
mirth. 

Like a victorious General rallying his forces after a 
severe skirmish, Mrs. Clarendon formed her guests into 
marching order again. 

Still on the arm of the Colonel, upon whom she seemed 
to bear down with all the weight of her sixteen stone, she 
led the way to supper, like some mythical bird of prey 
bearing off her victim in her arms. And little Colonel 
Naseby looked and felt the victim. He would have 
given much to have been stretched at ease in his favorite 
Berbice chair in the cool Artillery barracks, with the last 
copy of Truths rather than perked up in uniform, to be, 
by virtue of his rank, the chief guest of the evening. 


MRS. CLARENDON A T HOME. 


47 


He was not seen outside of his mess-dinners at any 
entertainments for months afterwards. I doubt if the 
hero of the Transvaal ever felt more completely hemmed 
in and with so little chance of escape, than he did in 
Mrs. Clarendon’s unyielding hands. 

The fates seemed to have decreed that this first enter- 
tainment of Mrs. Clarendon should be marked in big 
letters in the annals of Barbados society; if not as a 
defeat in the wars for social distinction, yet as a victory 
more costly than defeat, the memory of which should 
be undying even in such a transient, come-and-go com- 
munity as that of an important West Indian garrison 
colony. 

No regiment ever came to St. Anne’s for the next ten 
years that did not add to its mess-room anecdotes the 
story of Mrs. Clarendon’s dance. 

The tent under which the supper was spread, erected 
early in the day, had been the recipient of so much 
water that it could not be expected to hold it all in 
silence forever, and had already begun to ease itself of its 
burden by dripping here and there in quite a showery 
fall. Several of the candles had been put out by the 
falling drops, so that the place was in partial darkness. 
Little pools of water lay in the plates and glasses, and the 
saddle of mutton floated in quite a lake of moisture. We 
wiped off the chairs with napkins, but when they felt the 
burden of some fair damsel they sank in the wet turf. 
Mrs. Clarendon, who was the first to sit down, buried her 
chair to the rungs in mud, and was with great difficulty 
raised out of it by the ever-attendant Colonel. 

Miss Belton, whom I had taken to supper, looked, in 
the partial darkness, the great Creole beauty that she 
was, but more than ever like a splendid poison-lizard, 
which to me she always resembled. 


48 


GOSSIP OP THE CARIBBEES. 


She asked me in her subtle way if I thought it had been 

a wet night at the Countess of D ’s famous dinner. 

I replied, I thought not, for I felt sure if it had been my 
respected grandparent. Sir Algernon, could hardly have 
survived it, in which case I should not now be standing 
beside her. 

The butlers seemed quite confused. One, when asked 
for a knife, wrested a goodly number from a fellow-servant 
with alarming viciousness, and looked quite threatening 
with his hands full of them. Another appeared so over- 
come by the weather that he retired to a corner and wept 
bitterly, and was only consoled by a glass of champagne 
stealthily passed him by some unseen hand outside. 

Most of us, with ardor diminished, vexed and hungry, 
went back to the ballroom, where we found the musi- 
cians riotously merry. 

Mrs. Brockhart, who seemed quite exasperated, en- 
deavored to persuade them to play, which they did 
sulkily. The unmelodious strains of music, however, 
seemed a fit accompaniment to the drunken orgy that 
was evidently going on below stairs. The Captain had 
disappeared, probably to see if he could quell the dis- 
turbance; but as he came back and the din continued, 
we judged his efforts to have been ineffectual. 

How he managed it I have often wondered, but Colonel 
Naseby had escaped from Mrs. Clarendon’s clutches, and 
was bidding her and her mother good-night, — a signal 
we all accepted with relief, and Mrs. Clarendon’s dance 
was over. 

Quite alive to the ill-success of her party, she said to 
several on leaving, — 

“I am more than surprised at my servants’ behavior, 
and must apologize for the great discomfort you have all 


MRS. CLARENDON AT HOME. 


49 


suffered, having come out such a night as this to such a 
fiasco. However, I console myself with the fact, that 

once at dear Lady D ’s the butlers got hold of the 

key of her wine-closet, and her guests had no supper at 
all!” 

Mrs. Brockhart, with an attempt at her old merry 
laugh, called out to young Clifton-Somerset, the new 
magistrate of the St. Anne’s division, — 

“ Dear Mr. Clifton-Somerset, remember, if you see us 
in your Court to-morrow, to give these brute wretches of 
ours the lash and hard labor. Do it, if only to revenge 
yourself for having had such a miserable evening.” 

“ Let me see them in my Court to-morrow, Mrs. Brock- 
hart, and you may depend upon me to give it to them,” 
he replied, as he put his pretty wife into his carriage and 
drove off. 

Colonel Naseby did not get back to his quarters, from 
which he had reluctantly come, without further adven- 
ture. In his endeavor to escape, he went himself in 
pursuit of his carriage, and had the misfortune to slip 
in the oozy clay of the driveway, and fall into a Spanish 
needle-bush. 

I'he Spanish needle is a decidedly unpleasant plant to 
handle roughly, and so the Colonel found. Its spiky 
leaves released him at the sacrifice of his coat. Splashed 
with mud, his clothes in tatters, and bleeding from many 
wounds, he went back to the house. Every one had gone, 
so it is difficult to understand how the events I am about 
to relate got wind; for the Clarendons, quite as well as 
the Colonel, were highly interested in keeping everything 
dark. This is the story as it is told at the Mess: — 

When the dilapidated Colonel went back to the house 
to wait for his carriage, Mrs. Clarendon screamed, think- 


50 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


ing that he had been attacked by her drunken servants, 
and only escaped with his life. But her attention was 
instantly diverted from him, by seeing butlers, musicians, 
cook, and cook’s invited friends burst into the room, in 
Bedlamite fraternity, armed with bottles, empty and full. 
Mrs. Clarendon, doubtless, thought they had come in pur- 
suit of the Colonel, and implored him to flee. Naseby 
was speechless, and looked at her in a dazed way. He 
did not remain long in his amazement, for Captain Clar- 
endon begged him to help him clear the house of the 
riotous servants. Armed with sticks, they advanced on 
the brawling brutes, who scattered and ran down dark 
passages, where it was futile to follow them. 

In the darkness the Colonel ran against something 
which he thought was one of the servants, and he seized 
her and tried to drag her into the light. 

The 150th had just come from South Africa, where 
they were always on the watch for night attacks and up- 
risings generally, and in the swift workings of the brain, 
Naseby argued from his South African experience, that 
this was a riot of the blacks, which, indeed, it really was, 
and he struggled desperately with the negress, in the hope 
of getting to the barracks to raise the alarm. They 
fought in the darkness, the negress screaming and claw- 
ing Naseby, and the pandemonium generally only inten- 
sified his belief that the blacks had rken. Finally the 
Captain and Mrs. Brockhart appeared in alarm with 
lights. Light is Truth. Instead of the Herculean negress 
he thought he was struggling with, the utterly panic- 
stricken Naseby perceived Mrs. Clarendon! What objects 
they must have looked 1 When he could find his voice 
he gasped out explanations and apologies which became 
mutual, for Mrs. Clarendon had thought that Naseby was 


MRS. CLARENDOM AT HOME. 


51 


one of the drunken servants, and that his intent was at 
least murder. Happy to find that his hostess had not 
met any injury from his hand, and happy to escape, he 
reached his quarters as rowdy-looking a specimen of a 
Colonel as had ever arrived there. 

Of course it was a stock topic of conversation for a 
long time. People said all sorts of nasty things, and 
reviled and gibed Mrs. Clarendon’s system of enter- 
taining. 

They wondered whether the dance had been a la mode 
in Anguilla ; whether the Countess of D had insti- 

tuted the custom of inebriate cooks and butlers appear- 
ing to amuse her guests, — bizarre innovations, which 
would by no means go down in Barbados in spite of the 
distinguished patronage of her ladyship. 

As was to be expected, Naseby was not very friendly 
with the Clarendons after this, nor could he be induced 
to accept invitations to At Homes with Dancing at 8.30. 

But the Clarendons braved it out boldly, and the 
arrival of Miss Saxthorpe once more brought Mrs. Clar- 
endon into the front rank of society. However, she 
never attempted to extend her hospitality to the length 
of giving another dance. 

Mrs. Clarendon was born to make history, as well as 
amusement, for the colony. How she made a match for 
Miss Saxthorpe, how she gossiped and how she quar- 
relled, are not all her works to be found in the records 
of her historian ? 
















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HELEN OF TROY. 


We called her Helen of Troy for none of the reasons 
you would have supposed. 

The women that have received the homage of the 
world have received it and kept it long after the first 
blush of girlhood. 

After that weary sack of Troy, when Menelaus sailed 
back to Greece with his captive spouse, he found her, 
notwithstanding the various causes that might have marred 
her beauty, the same witching, lovely creature as of old. 

Time fell in love with Homer’s Helen. 

The remorseless old man is susceptible. 

Happy the woman he loves, for his gift is beauty. 

Our Helen of Troy was of this class; but she resembled 
the Spartan queen only in that the years had no power 
to diminish her fascination. 

She had not eloped from her husband by any means ; 
her Menelaus was the captain of the man-of-war on the 
station, and a delightful man, and she had a daughter at 
school in England. 

She came to the colony ever so many years before. 
Indeed, she seemed almost coeval with British civiliza- 
tion in the West Indies, and was so lovely and “like 
to the immortal goddesses,’^ that some clever chap 
conceived the idea that, as her name was Helen and her 

55 


56 GOSSIP OP THE CAP/P BEES. 

husband’s ship (he was barely a lieutenant then) was 
H. M. S. ^^Troy,” of christening her Helen of Troy, a 
name which has stuck to her ever since. 

No young chap ever came out from Sandhurst or 
Woolwich who did not worship at her shrine. She was 
as much an institution in Barbados as the Almighty 
Sugar or the Tramways Co., Limited, or the House of 
Assembly. 

His Excellency of to-day, when he was private secre- 
tary to the Excellency of twenty years before, had come 
to the colony and found her flourishing, and left it and 
gone through the Colonial Service to a Governorship and 
come back again, and found her altars just as heaped 
with hecatombs as ever, and her worship as popular. 

No one, of course, knew Helen of Troy’s age; she 
might have been five-and-twenty, or she might have been 
fifty. 

I doubt, indeed, whether any one knew who she was. 
Some said she had ‘^a touch of color;” others, that her 
mother had been a coolie-woman; but it was all guess- 
work, and no one, save her Menelaus, knew. 

She spoke of the uttermost parts of the earth and what 
she had seen there, when this generation remembered her 
to have always lived in the West Indies. One’s brain 
became dazed by such facts, and gazing on her one was 
tempted to believe that she led a charmed life. 

Her little house, just off the Hastings Road, sheltered 
by the poisonous manchineel, was always cool and a 
temple whose doors were always open. 

Helen of Troy never struggled for supremacy, like 
Lady Claude Vernon; never laid snares to entrap men; 
never was heard to talk scandal. Whenever she entered 
a ballroom every one sought a dance from her. Men 


HELE.Y OF TROY. 


57 


made engagements days ahead to ride with her; would 
even put up with bad wine and a poor dinner to be able 
to sit beside her. 

The sailors on the old “Troy,” which had been com- 
missioned and re-commissioned over and over again, 
idolized her, and would have jumped in among the 
man-eaters in the bay for her sake. 

The service at the Cathedral always seemed grander 
and more impressive when Helen of Troy sat in the 
chancel-stalls, stately and devout, with the gentle look 
in her great black eyes, and the rippling waves of raven 
hair coiled low on her ivory neck. 

When young Pelton of the Engineers had typhoid- 
fever, and was left to the loneliness and uncertain nursing 
of the garrison hospital, she took him to her own house, 
watched for days and nights beside his bed, and, when 
he was convalescent, though he had just returned from 
leave, went herself to the General, got a new extension, 
and shipped him back Home to his own and his people’s 
everlasting gratitude. 

Her most devoted admirers were very young men, and 
she was the confessor and adviser of half the young chaps 
in the colony. 

Was her Menelaus jealous of all this attention? Not 
at all; who could help admiring Helen of Troy? Mene- 
laus, for love of the station, had managed to persuade 
the Admiralty Office to commission him over and over 
again to the West Indies, and he had spent the better 
part of his life there. This year was to be his last, 
and he was to retire on half-pay and settle down at 
Home. 

We all knew this, and wondered how the colony would 
seem without our Helen of Troy. Her husband in these 


58 GOSSIP OF THE C A RIB BEES. 

last months was cruising about Jamaica and Hayti, and 
her daughter had been at school at Home for years. 

Helen of Troy lived alone, unfettered, a resistless 
temptation to any one to capture her. So thought young 
Mowbray, R.A. 

This artillery-man had just got his commission, and 
just arrived. He first saw Helen of Troy at polo, and, 
like all the rest, fell under her charm.. 

Now, Mowbray was very young, scarcely one-and- 
twenty, and he was a very frank, impressionable young 
Englishman. After that first meeting with Helen of Troy 
he loved her with the full force of his one-and-twenty 
years. He danced with her; he rode with her; he waited 
on her, anticipating her every want; and when she rested 
those glorious black eyes on him, or gave him the tips 
of her delicate fingers, he trembled all over, and blushed 
to the roots of his Saxon hair and was satisfied. 

He never mentioned her name to a living soul. It 
was too sacred a subject with him; hence, he never knew 
that she had a husband living or a daughter grown up. 
He was content that she existed, and that she was lovely 
and good and his ideal of a woman. 

A boy’s heart sometimes runs away with his head. 

The station laughed at his devotion. When his truth- 
ful, serious eyes would gaze on her, Helen of Troy would 
feel very sad and half sigh. Maybe it reminded her of a 
far-distant past, of another passionate love once lavished 
on her, and the hopelessness of fate. One day young 
Mowbray dropped in upon her suddenly, as was his 
custom. Something had made her sad; for when the 
young fellow entered the room there were traces of tears 
in her eyes, and the smile she gave him was a pathetic 
little parting of the lips. 


HELEN OF TROY. 


59 


. The first thought that flashed across his brain as he 
saw her was that she was in trouble. 

It was so agonizing to him to think of Helen of Troy 
in tears that his mighty boyish love shook off the tram- 
mels that bound it, and rushing forward he threw himself 
beside her as she sat in the long Berbice chair. I don’t 
suppose he ever thought of the great discrepancy in their 
ages; she was to him a beautiful loved being that had 
stirred him to the depths. 

“Helen,” he murmured, “what has made you sad? 
Tell me, let me try to comfort you. Surely, dearest, 
you’ll give me the right?” His eager, passionate young 
face was close to hers ; and he caught her hands in both 
his hot ones. 

Helen of Troy shuddered and a look of intense pity 
swept across her face. 

“Hush!” she cried; “you don’t know what you say. 
Think of my husband! ” 

“Your husband!” he echoed, and he rose to his feet, 
pale and quivering. 

“Yes,” said Helen of Troy; “surely you knew I was 
married. My husband is captain of the ‘Troy,’ the ship 
on the station. I expect him daily, and I have a daughter 
at Home as old as you.” 

He broke down and buried his face in his hands. Her 
eyes glistened, and she rested a hand on his shoulder. 
She read him through like a book, and realized the purity 
of his love. 

“I always thought that you knew my husband was 
alive. I am very sorry, but, honestly, it is only an illu- 
sion. Why, I am years older than you! You should 
see me in the early mornings. I am positively an old 
woman.” He groaned. 


6o 


GOSSIP OP THE CARIBBEES. 


“It wasn’t your age I cared about, it was yourself. 
You were so different from the other women.” 

She tried to laugh, and said, — 

“Different from other women! Of course, I am. Why, 
I am Helen of Troy, you know, and I don’t know how 
many ages old. Surely, you don’t want people to call 
you Paris, do you? It would stick to you for life. You 
wouldn’t like it, and it might injure you later on. Take 
my advice: go to Trinidad for a fortnight, and you can 
think of me as an old woman. Then you’ll not feel so 
bitter, and when you return I shall be gone.” He raised 
his eyes to hers, and said miserably, — 

“I can’t help loving you. I think I shall always love 
you. I am only a boy, I know, but I would die for you. 
The memory of you will be my guardian angel, I know 
it will. Oh! but it’s very hard! ” 

He picked up his hat and, turning to her, said, “Will 
you let me kiss you as I would my mother? ” 

Helen of Troy raised her lovely face with unshed tears 
in her eyes, and he pressed his lips to hers. “ Good-by ! ” 
he murmured, hoarsely, as he left the room. 

“Good-by! ” smiled Helen of Troy through her tears. 


AN OBEAH STORY. 


“ But all Lies have sentence of death written down 
against them, in Heaven’s Chancery itself; and, slowly 
or fast, advance incessantly towards their hour.” 


The French Revolution : Carlyi. 



•f % 



AN OBEAH STORY. 


Obeah, as everybody knows, is an African fetich of the 
very lowest type. Unlike most Savage superstitions, 
which quickly fade under the scorching light of civiliza- 
tion, this has a remarkable power of endurance. For 
years its ‘^doctors,’’ or obi-men, exerted a baleful influ- 
ence over the blacks in the West Indies, whither it was 
undoubtedly brought from the Slave Coast. Now, 
happily, in the English colonies at least, it is under the 
ban of the law, and the active and public profession of it 
is dead. Obeah to-day is only a superstition ; but until 
education shall have completely civilized the black race 
it will live in a more or less powerful, secret, and evil 
way. 

Of all the superstitions of which I have any knowledge, 
this of obeah is the most unreasonable and most difficult 
to throw off, as Mrs. Togson found. Mrs. Togson was the 
wife of a Moravian missionary, and lived at Canaan, a 
mission-station in St John’s. 

She was an active and ardent Englishwoman, going 
heart and soul into all she undertook, and Canaan was 
the scene of her first experience in mission work. She 
was a great help to the Reverend Togson, and, indeed, 
without her Canaan would have languished. The climate 

63 


64 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


did not suit the Reverend Togson very well; he was 
always ailing and suffered from the “cough,” as the 
negroes say. In other words, he was consumptive. 

On first coming to Canaan, Mrs. Togson had much 
difficulty in finding a housemaid. The negroes were shy 
of Canaan, for Mary Princess had been bewitched there. 
It was bad luck to live in the place, and on Sundays the 
mission chapel was almost empty. When Mrs. Togson 
learned the reason for this state of things, and in her 
healthy English way realized what a flimsy one it was, it 
made her quite impatient. 

She used to say that the verse in the Bible, “ Cast thy 
bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many 
days,” was to her almost vexatious. She wanted to see 
instantaneous results : she would strike at the root of an 
evil, and expect the tree to wither at once. But though 
often discouraged, she would go to work again with 
greater vigor. 

As soon as she perceived what was obstructing the 
mission car, she examined the whole case clearly, and 
energetically determined to stamp out this troublesome 
obeah, or witchcraft, and make Canaan verily a land 
flowing with milk and honey. Mrs. Togson was a clever 
woman and had an irresistible charm of manner which 
few, if any, could withstand. She sought out Mary Prin- 
cess, bewitched and given up body and soul to the fatal- 
istic superstition, and, after patient exertion, aroused 
her paralyzed sensibilities, and finally got the woman to 
return to her old occupation at Canaan. 

This was half the battle. The force of example is, in 
its way, as powerful as that of gravity or any other phys- 
ical force. The negroes of St. John’s seeing Mary Prin- 
cess back in her old place and released from the fearful 


AJV OBEAII STORY. 


65 


curse, believed infallibly in Mrs. Togson, and she did 
good, healthy work among them, and Canaan at every 
meeting was crowded. She undertook a crusade against 
obeah, and declared open, uncompromising war against 
all superstition. 

This active, fighting work was the sort she liked; no 
enemy was too terrible for her to grapple with ; but she 
must win, for defeat was a very bitter draught for her to 
swallow. 

Mary Princess was young, tall, and comely. One of 
her progenitors had had enough white blood in him to 
relieve her complexion from that of a pure blooded 
African, and to redeem her features from coarseness. 
She was able to read and write, and was a communicant 
of the Established Church, none of which advantages, 
however, had saved her from the innate fear of obeah. 
“Bewitched,” to a negro means but one thing, and that 
is under the spell of the obeah. Mary Princess had 
been bewitched a few months previous to Mrs. Togson’s 
arrival in a peculiarly simple way. 

She was a widow of a year’s standing, and, being 
young and comely, was on the point of marrying the 
second time the coachman of the previous incumbent of 
Canaan. 

This man had a rival in the person of the chief boiler 
in the sugar-house of a neighboring plantation. Mary 
Princess would not look at the boiler-man at all, and 
scornfully ridiculed him. He at last grew angry and 
threatened her with obi-spells. 

A few nights afterward, sitting alone in the door of 
her own home, a dried-up, evil-faced old man, who was 
known by every one to be an obi-man, one thoroughly 
initiated, too, in all the secrets of the fetich, but for- 


66 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


bidden under ban of the law to practise any of his arts, 
suddenly stood before her. 

The sight of this hideous, ragged old man, as his 
shadow darkened her door, made her shudder, as she re- 
membered the current belief in him and the boiler-man’s 
threat. Though obi worship was under a ban, yet the 
negroes often secretly had recourse to the obi-men for 
medicines and charms to use against an enemy. Because 
the old fetich was only mentioned in whispers did not 
reason that the evil was stamped out. 

Though taught to regard such people as powerless, yet 
in her inmost spirit Mary Princess quailed before 
him. Standing before her, he asked for a drink of water. 
When his thirst was quenched he looked at her with his 
malicious eyes, which burned redly in the sinister face, 
and said, — 

“Daughter, I hear you will marry the coachman at 
Canaan. Beware of the parrot-feathers buried under the 
steps of the chapel. There is a charm in them to work 
you harm. You understand whereof I speak, and you 
know I speak truth.” 

He made some signs and spat upon the ground, then, 
leering horribly at her, shuffled off into the darkness. 

A mental paralysis settled upon Mary Princess. In 
that moment the Established Church and all its promises 
were forgotten, and the fatal fear of the obeah sank into 
her very soul, — a haunting, benumbing fear that never 
left her; a fear that made day intolerable and night a 
hideous dream; an utterly baseless and senseless fear, 
but innate, hereditary, and nigh ineradicable. 

The obi-man had warned her; and when an obi-man 
warns you at night, alone and unexpectedly, his warning 
is a curse, let the white man and Christian argue as he 
will! 


AJV OBEA/i STORY. 


67 


From that moment she became bewitched or mesmer- 
ized, for the arts of obi-men are powerful on their race. 

A ghastly pallor, which is so awful in the negro, settled 
over her. She lost all interest in her coachman lover, in 
her service, in life. 

She left Canaan and returned to her own cottage, and 
settled into stagnation and sCmi-madness. 

The curse — or was it the magnetic influence of the obi- 
man? — was withering her. To all the blacks in the 
neighborhood it was known that Mary Princess was 
bewitched, and she was shunned with fear, for the 
blacks believe that the bewitched have power to bewitch 
others. 

To counteract this effect was an almost insuperable 
obstacle; but Mrs. Togson enjoyed the task, and con- 
quered. Mrs. Togson kept Mary Princess near her all 
the time, and under her vigorous training she gradually 
made the woman feel how senseless it all was. She even 
went so far as to seek out the old beggar and gave him a 
sound rating. In her intense and zealous desire to oblit- 
erate this deadly superstition, the chief enemy the mis- 
sionary has to fight against, she threatened, if he were 
seen in the neighborhood again, to hand him over to the 
law, which ought to have dealt with him before. 

The sinister old wretch, who was even able to terrify 
some white people, knew that this Englishwoman was 
beyond his power, and that, furthermore, she might bring 
down on his withered shoulders the merciless lash, the 
only effective weapon the law has in dealing with such 
characters. After that interview he disappeared, and the 
people said the “White missy bewitch heC^ 

Mary Princess regained her spirits and good looks and 
was a great help in the Canaan household. The Rever- 


68 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


end Togson was growing constantly weaker, and the 
whole burden of the mission fell on his wife, who worked 
hard, and loved it. 

Perhaps of all the good that she felt she had done at 
the station this reclamation of Mary Princess she con- 
sidered the chief. Perhaps she prided herself too much 
on it, looking at it in a self-congratulatory way, for she 
was shown that while she believed her house to be built 
on a rock, it was, in reality, built on the sand. The first 
storm that came destroyed it. 

Mary Princess was soon to be married at Canaan to her 
old lover. Mrs. Togson talked much about how she had 
got the foolish superstition of obeah out of her maid’s 
head. The scepticism of her white friends, who told her 
not to be too confident, provoked her. To Mrs. Togson ’s 
bold and active nature, this easy-going, feeble, critical 
attitude of the whites seemed insular and touched with 
superstition. It irritated her. 

But the storm broke when least expected. 

One evening Mary Princess was leaning from a win- 
dow at Canaan, momently expecting her lover. A rich 
tropical moonlight covered the earth, and she could hear 
the cabbage-palms rustling gently in the breeze. The 
slender spire of the chapel close by pierced the glitter- 
ing sky. She saw the lights inside and heard the voices 
of her race chanting a well-known psalm. Suddenly, 
and without warning, the obi-man stood before her. 
Where he came from she could not tell; but there he 
was, and with the same red light in the malevolent eyes, 
and the same bent, hideous form, a black spot on the 
beauty of the night, a memento mori. 

The woman’s graceful form shivered and drew back 
from the window; but a bony hand seized her wrist, and 


AjV obea// stoby. 


69 


petrified now with terror, she stood as if struck motion- 
less. The wicked, red eyes seemed to burn into her very 
brain, as the croaky voice of the obi-man said, — 

“ A curse upon you ! Under the silk-cotton-tree yonder 
lies buried a curse to blight you. You have deserted the 
worship of your race, and the she-devil you live with has 
no more any power to save you! Remember the curse, 
the withering, never-dying curse of the obeah! ” 

As mysteriously as he had come, he went; a cloud 
seemed to have passed over the moon; the earth and 
sky, bathed in the molten radiance, were lovelier than 
ever; the leaves of the rustling cabbage-palms as they 
glinted in the moonlight seemed turned to silver by 
magic; the last sweet notes of the psalm were dying 
away; the world was very peaceful and beautiful. 

But Mary Princess heeded it not. She felt that creep- 
ing, unknown dread coming back; the fatal superstition 
was casting its mantle over her. There was no use, 
then, struggling against it? 

‘ It was the old taint in the blood showing again. A 
burst of glorious, joyous music from the organ in the 
chapel startled her. A cry came to her lips, but did not 
escape them. Almost instantly she realized what the 
music was, and she tottered against the wall, fainting 
from the reaction. 

In the benumbed brain a thought suddenly made itself 
felt. She would go to her room. On her table was a 
Bible, on the walls mission tracts. If there were any 
comfort in life, it must lie in that Bible, in those tracts, 
or nowhere. Crushing down her fears with a mighty 
effort, she was almost her old self as she went to her 
room. 

The moonlight was streaming through the open win- 


70 


GOSS/F OF THE CARIBBEES. 


dows. It seemed to focus itself on her bed, upon which 
lay a tiny coffin with skull and cross-bones on the lid, 
and in big letters underneath were the words “Here lies 
Mary Princess.’’ 

The sight of the uncanny object and the question of 
how it came there, made her heart stand still for a mo- 
ment. Then, as if remembering what she had come for, 
she turned to the table upon which her Bible lay. 

In so doing she saw the obi-man’s head peering over 
the window, his sinister face with the magnetic, mali- 
cious eyes transfixed her, and the frog-notes of his voice 
branded into her brain a curse of the obeah. ' 

Human nature could stand the strain no longer. 
Christianity and all she had been taught crumbled to 
atoms before the reality of the power of the absurd but 
fearsome fetich. Shriek after shriek burst from her, and 
Mary Princess rushed from the house into the brilliant 
night, a raving maniac. 

Mrs. Togson was powerless now to cure her. Somehow 
the negroes learned the cause of her insanity, and fearing 
lest they likewise should fall under the dread curse, they 
slyly and surely deserted the Canaan chapel, to the dis- 
may and irritation of Mrs. Togson. 

She possessed no art to win them back, and the task 
was even too great for her courage. Her failure, when 
success seemed assured beyond all doubt, broke her 
heart. Disappointment in mission work slays people as 
much as the climate of mission lands. 

Mrs. Togson’s ardent spirit never made any discount 
for the ups and downs of her mission life, and the unfore- 
seen failure and wreckage of her efforts overwhelmed 
her. 

The obi-man was never seen in St. John’s again, but 


AJV OBEAH STORY. 


7 


Mary Princess in the strait- jacket, chained to a gloomy 
cell at the Asylum, is his legacy to his race. 

Obeah, though rarely coming to light, still lingers in 
spite of the scolfs that would ignore its existence and its 
power. Maybe the optimist would prefer to use a milder, 
vaguer term. The old fetich is moribund, but in death- 
travail it has given birth to a coarse, ignorant, and 
groundless superstition, which is blocking the car of 
progress of the West Indian. 

The Church is at deadly war with it, but Education will 
bear off the palm-wreath of victory. The battle will be 
a long one, but the issue is already determined. 


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“ . . . Oh ! there lie such depths of woe 

In young blighted spirit ! ” 

The Lady of the Castle : Mrs. Hemans. 




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AN OLD PORTRAIT. 


This is a tale of my ancestors. In the rare intervals 
of my childhood, when I was taken Home by my parents, 
we always went into the country to visit my grandpapa, 
who lived in a splendid house with a grand old park sur- 
rounding it, beyond which stretched acres and acres of 
downy meadows and rich farm lands. 

Grandpapa lived there with my uncle and his family 
quietly but proudly, for the bluest of blue blood flowed in 
his veins, and the estate was the pride of the county. 

The place was deadly quiet, but I did not mind that; 
it was lively enough for my cousins and me, and in 
the purple autumn weather, vigorous with life, we rode 
or tramped through every nook and crook of the vast 
domain. 

When the old man died and my uncle reigned at Trev- 
orley Towers, everything was changed. Parties came 
down from London for the shooting and the fishing; up- 
holsterers came with costly fabrics and decorators with 
gilt and rich ornamentation and renovated the old-time 
house. 

Yes, since the old man’s death Trevorley Towers has 
been the scene of one long revel of high life, and at last, 
after three centuries, has again given rest and hospitality 
to the reigning sovereign. 


75 


76 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


How I loved the place ! how I envied my cousin, des- 
tined to be lord of it and all its treasures! and how, 
when the visits were over and I was back in Barbados, 
I longed for it with the dreary homesickness of a child! 
But that feeling has long since died, and I only think of 
the beautiful old home now as a sort of childish dream 
of paradise. 

I remember especially that my chief delight was the 
picture-gallery with its rows of portraits that papa told 
me were Trevorleys, who had lived in the Towers from 
time immemorial. He was very proud of that long line 
of forebears, and I used also, in my childish pride, to 
swell and strut about Barbados feeling altogether too 
good for my playmates. 

But of all those pictures there was one I liked best; 
and after reviewing them daily, as a general would an 
army corps, I would invariably return to my favorite and 
muse over it long. 

How time flies! It seems but yesterday since I saw 
that portrait, and it is twenty years nearly, and many 
unexpected changes have come to me and mine in that 
time. 

It still hangs in its old place in the gallery, and, I 
dare say, if I should see it now after this lapse of time, 
it would affect me as of old, for childish impressions 
often prove stronger than those of maturity. 

This portrait was the gem of the collection, and was 
by Lawrence, in his best style. 

It depicted a woman in a loose-flowing gown of the 
period; an immense hat with plumes had fallen from her 
head and was resting on her neck ; one arm dropped at 
her side and held in the slender fingers a withered rose. 
The face, three quarters turned to you, was perfect in 


A AT OLD PORTRAIT. 


77 


outline and very lovely; but there was something in the 
eyes that repelled while it attracted. There was an air 
of sadness on the canvas, which impressed the observer. 

Looking at that face, with its wonderful expression of 
indifference vainly battling with intensity, even as a 
child, I felt that there must be a story connected with 
her and an interesting one. I remember on one occa- 
sion, when barely seven, I was lost and could not be 
found anywhere, and the Towers was in consternation. 
Finally grandpapa discovered me asleep in an arm-chair 
before my favorite. 

“Grandpapa,^’ I said, “tell me, who is that beautiful 
lady? I love her so, I could die for her L’ 

The old man sat down in the chair and, taking me in 
his lap, told me briefly that she was his mother and had 
been very, very unhappy, and that some day I should 
know all about her, but at present all I could do was to 
love her and pray for her. With this I was content, 
and it was not till I was a youth at Oxford and the last 
time I have ever visited the Towers that I heard the 
story of my ancestress. 

In the early part of this century the Island of Nevis was 
the chief resort of invalids and fashion in the West Ind- 
ies. Its hot springs were noted, and people from Deme- 
rara to Cuba went there to recuperate and be gay. 

I was in Nevis the other day. The grand caravanserai 
at the springs is crumbling to ruin, and looks like some 
deserted or enchanted palace in an Arabian Nights 
story, as gray and grim, alone and silent now, it towers 
above the palms and banyans and sand-box trees. 

From its terraced roof you can see the exquisite bay 
with its sapphire water, once filled with the mighty 
navies of England, now all empty. 


78 GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 

The balmy breeze comes to you from the cloud-capped 
mountains as of old; but with the exception that the 
sublime scenery and health-giving winds are the same, 
no one of those health-seekers and gay fashion-seekers 
of a century ago would recognize the place. 

Then England and France fought for the mastery of 
the seas in these waters, and Nelson and Rodney and 
DeGrasse were known and seen continually. 

Bands played, dances, dinners, and flirtations went 
on, splendid equipages rolled through the streets and 
well-born people graced lovely Novis and put the seal of 
their approval on it of all others. 

In the year 1800 the Bishop of St. Vincent died and 
left his only child to the guardianship of his distant 
kinsman and friend, the Bishop of Nevis. 

His lordship of Nevis spent half the year in Nevis and 
the other half at Home. 

He was a bachelor of nearly sixty, and lived a very 
quiet life, but, on the whole, was glad of this addition 
to his household. 

Evelyn Travers was, of course, lovely, and she showed 
a great fondness for the Bishop. 

Before long this young girl of barely twenty had got 
complete mastery over the old fellow. She gradually 
changed his bachelor dinners into regular parties with 
ladies, instituted all sorts of amusements, and turned 
Bishop’s Court into what must have seemed to the pious 
old ladies of the parish like a den of unrighteousness and 
mammon-worship. 

Of course society, as usual, said nasty things, the outer- 
ring of it, and ridiculed the Bishop and Miss Travers. 
But they did not seem to mind, for they only entertained 
the Government House set, which petted and flattered 
Miss Travers. 


AA^ OLD PORTRAIT. 


79 


It was very amusing to see her driving in the old ark 
of a carriage that had been at Bishop’s Court for fifty 
years or more. As it rumbled along she would lean back 
with the air of a princess, her lips curved scornfully, her 
eyes half-closed, then suddenly opening to stare inso- 
lently at you. But though she gave herself all these airs, 
she was pretty and lovable, and they seemed so suited to 
her that you forgave her her pride. 

She was very wilful, and got the Bishop into bad odor 
once or twice because she insisted on dancing in Lent, 
and would drag his lordship with her on all such occa- 
sions, until, even in those conservative days, one or two 
sinister remarks were made in the papers about disestab- 
lishment and corrupt clergy. 

Her life jogged along thus till she was three-and- 
twenty, and there came to her, as to almost all other 
girls, the great event of her life. 

She fell in love with the Private Secretary at Govern- 
ment House, the Honorable Plunkett Trelawney. 

This gentleman was good-looking, or at least Miss 
Travers discerned good looks in him, and he was young 
and well-born. 

The Government House set made up the match. When 
Miss Travers’s blue eyes looked at you gayly or angrily, 
when the lips pouted and the face flushed, the most 
hardened man would succumb. 

Trelawney looked and loved. So they were engaged ; 
and it was even more amusing to see Miss Travers, with 
the same indolent grace and the same insolent air, 
driving in the old ark with Trelawney riding beside her 
and casting long love-looks at her, as his sword clanked 
against his saddle. 

The Bishop’s consent was never asked. Miss Travers, 


8o 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


in her proud, wilful way, as usual, went into his study one 
morning, gave him a fillip of a kiss, and said, — 

“I have decided to marry Trelawney. He will an- 
nounce it to-day,’^ and then airily floated out of the 
room. 

No one knew whether his lordship was pleased or not. 

Life was in no wise changed at Bishop’s Court, save 
that Trelawney made himself perfectly at home there, 
and Miss Travers deserted her guests to devote herself 
entirely to her lover. 

Now, the Honorable Plunkett Trelawney was a captain 
of marines on board H. M. S. “Andromache,” and was 
only Private Secretary temporarily. I have no doubt he 
loved the handsome, ardent creature he was betrothed 
to; but in spite of his good looks, in spite of his high 
birth and his numerous other advantages, the Honorable 
Plunkett Trelawney was weak and, under certair circum- 
stances, might even be inconstant. 

When a girl like Evelyn Travers gives her heart, it 
means a great deal; she worshipped Trelawney, and 
when, in the course of time, the “ Andromache ” was 
ordered to England to prepare for the great naval war 
with France, there was a fearful parting with her lover. 
Oaths were plighted over and over again, and as she bade 
him hasten back to claim her, in her new role of a soft, 
sorrowful woman, she was, if anything, sweeter than when 
animated by the airy pride which she so often affected. 

The Bishop actually shed a few tears when Trelawney 
bade him farewell and kissed Evelyn for the last, as she 
lay fainting in the old chap’s arms. 

But she soon recovered from this excess of grief, and 
began to make arrangements for her trousseau. 

Although we were at war with France, yet, after great 


AJV OLD PORTRAIT, 


8i 


trouble and expense, Miss Travers received her trousseau 
from Paris, and was in raptures over it. 

Any one who had not been to Bishop’s Court to in- 
spect this marvellous wardrobe, stamped with the Tre- 
lawney coronet, was not in the set. 

Miss Travers had heard regularly from her lover, and he 
wrote such letters, full of sweet, passionate epithets, but 
so badly spelled that they made even her laugh ; but now 
everything was ready, the “ Andromache ” was on her way 
back to Nevis, friends had overpowered her with presents, 
and the British Fleet was to come from Barbados espe- 
cially to be present. In fact, Nevis with its crowds of 
visitors from everywhere talked of nothing else. Miss 
Travers was excited and gracious and supremely lovely 
and happy. 

The “Andromache” duly arrived, and Miss Travers, 
from the cupola of Bishop’s Court with an old glass spied 
it and every boat that left it, but could not discern Tre- 
lawney. While she was thus occupied some one called 
her, and, thinking that he had come, she hurried below. 
A letter was put into her hands in Trelawney’s well- 
known writing. As usual, the words were blotted and 
misspelled, but this time Miss Travers did not laugh. 

It told her in a roundabout, apologetic, but perfectly 
positive way that the Honorable Plunkett Trelawney’s 
noble father highly disapproved of his son’s marriage with 
a West Indian; that he had seen a lot of Lady Clara 
Merivale lately, and, after many threats from his papa, 
had proposed to her; that when this letter reached her he 
would be married; that he knew, he was cruel to write 
like this and break her heart, but, after all, the Honorable 
Plunkett Trelawney felt that Miss Travers would soon 
forget him, though he, in spite of Lady Clara Merivale, 


82 GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 

should always love Miss Travers; but the circumstances 
of fate, et cetera. 

Very pale, with a cold, steely look in the blue eyes, 
she went to the Bishop and gave him the letter. 

He said nothing, — words were useless in this case, — 
but I think he had expected it all the time. 

So Miss Travers’s dream was over, and, worst of all, her 
pride had to suffer; for she had made the affair so public, 
that say or do what she would, every one would know she 
had been jilted. The baseness of the Honorable Plun- 
kett Trelawney and his utter lack of character were now 
apparent to her, and she hated him. Her hate was so 
terrible that it effaced the love entirely, and her only 
thought was revenge. She did not shut herself up from 
the world, not a bit of it; she drove out as usual in the 
old ark, went to the dances at the Springs Hotel, and was 
the same Miss Travers as ever. 

Sailing in the men-of war pinnaces over the summery 
sea between St. Kitts and Nevis, riding up the mountains 
with the military to see the moon turn to silver, as with 
leprosy, the silent valleys and dreamy ocean stretched 
far below, wrapped in the sad, purplish half light of the 
gloaming, she was as lovely and wilful as ever. None 
would have thought of the canker of hate that was eating 
into her every fibre. 

More than ever was she envied by the greater part of 
society for her beauty and position in that Government 
House set, the aim of all, and in which she moved as if 
utterly indifferent to it. 

About eighteen months later the Honorable Plunkett 
Trelawney, by order of the Admiralty, was commanded 
to join a corvette in Jamaica, and in due time appeared 
in Nevis. Now, it was impossible for anyone to come to 


AN OLD PORTRAIT. 


83 


Nevis and remain unknown, for the island was so small, 
if the population was large, that a man as well known as 
he was could by no possible chance escape notice. 

Miss Travers met him face to face at an assembly 
dance in Charlottetown and cut him. 

People, of course, watched them closely, and, having 
heard that he was married, some one in the hearing of 
Miss Travers asked him how the Honorable Mrs. Plun- 
kett Trelawney was. He replied that the lady had never 
existed. 

Gossip and war talk were the principal themes in Nevis 
in those days, now, alas, even gossip is dead, and when 
some one of its scant population says a few words on the 
sugar crop, a long pause reigns till it is broken by 
the same subject again. Gossip, I say, had it that the 
Honorable Plunkett Trelawney had never been married, 
and the whole subject of his jilting Miss Travers was 
revived. 

It came to her ears. Convinced of his weakness 
before, she was fully assured of his villany now, and 
her hard little heart was ready to burst with rage. 

“Curse him, my lord, curse him!” she cried once dur- 
ing a prayer in which the Bishop of Nevis was invoking 
a blessing on our enemies; and I think he would like 
to have echoed her anathema aloud, so completely had 
Miss Travers bound him in her toils, but shame before 
his slaves held hini back. 

Well, the great tragedy at Government House on the 
night of His Majesty’s birthday was as much talked of 
as the approaching French Fleet, which struck terror to 
every English colony in the West Indies, and the excite- 
ment that ruled in the gay little island was unpre- 
cedented. How it was done no one knew; but the 


84 


GOSSIP OF THE C4RIBBEES. 


Honorable Plunkett Trelawney was found stiff and stark 
in the limewalk with a stiletto driven into his heart. 

Like wild-fire the news spread, and somehow or the 
other it was whispered that Miss Travers was missing; 
and then it was said that she had done the deed. 

Oh, the excitement in the colony! there was never 
anything like it. 

The marines scoured the island for Miss Travers, a 
guard was placed in Bishop’s Court, though the Bishop 
protested vehemently against the insult ; but the Governor 
insisted that Miss Travers must be found, if only to 
satisfy public opinion and justice. 

Days passed and still no trace of her, and society’s 
great unanswered question ever was, — 

^^Has anything been heard of Miss Travers? ” 

Well, nothing was heard of her, and it settled down 
into a mystery of which every one said only the Bishop 
knew the solution. 

'This impression became positive knowledge, owing to 
the curiosity of the mail-clerk, who noticed his lordship 
was in the habit of receiving from foreign parts letters in 
'a lady’s handwriting. He consulted some one who knew 
Miss Travers’s writing; and it was decided, in the interest 
of the public, that these suspicious foreign-looking letters 
should be opened and the contents made public. 

Thus it was found that Miss Travers had been long in 
correspondence with the Bishop — a bit of information 
which ruined that worthy old prelate. The old chap, a 
lordly fine-looking old fellow (I have seen his portrait in 
the gallery at Trevorley), was forced to resign, and went 
Home in disgrace. 

He did not remain so long, however. No one in 
England cared anything about a murder in the Bishop of 


AN OLD PORTRAIT. 


85 


Nevis’s family, and, as he on his arrival found his elder 
brother dead, he became heir to Trevorley Towers, and 
lived there in great state. 

As he was a great friend of Mr. Pitt, he procured com- 
plete pardon for the beautiful Miss Travers, who in a 
document confessed her guilt, and then he went to France 
and brought her home to the Towers. 

She had changed a great deal. She was still very, 
very lovely; but the airy pride and wilfulness were gone 
forever, and her face always wore a hard, passionate air. 

The old Bishop, at the age of seventy, married her, and 
gave her the protection of his name. 

Sh3 bore him one child, my grandfather. 

What love her turbulent heart held she gave to her 
husband, who had always loved her and sacrificed so 
much for her. She died at the Towers at a very great 
age, after leading a gloomy, solitary life, unrepentant to 
the last. 

But the murder of which she was guilty was not the 
worst part of the story. That night she escaped to the 
shore, and bribed a fishing-boat to carry her to Guada- 
loupe at once. 

Her fierce beauty, a wild look in her eyes caused by 
the awfulness of her deed, and the sudden, strange ap- 
pearance at that hour of a woman with gleaming neck 
and arms, in full ball costume, imperiously demanding 
to be carried to Guadaloupe, terrified the superstitious 
negroes; they set all sail and shot into the darkling sea, 
quivering with phosphorescent light, a veritable enchanted 
craft, with Miss Travers, beautiful, terrible, weird, a 
witch most potent. 

The little fishing schooner never reappeared in Nevis 
again, and was supposed by its owner to have been lost. 


86 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


The French were amazed when the craft with its singu- 
lar cargo arrived at Basse-Terre. Miss Travers demanded 
to be taken to the Governor, and told him her story. His 
Excellency was nonplussed. His country was at war with 
England, so he could not send her back to Nevis, and to 
keep her a prisoner of war was awkward and silly. So he 
established her at Government House in luxury until he 
could make up his mind what to do. She wrote to the 
Bishop explaining all, — why she had done the deed and 
where she had gone, that it was perfectly premeditated, 
and that she was not a bit sorry. 

The old fellow was, of course, shocked; but it relieved 
his mind to know she was safe, and, I believe, she might 
have been Hecate and he would have loved her. The 
Governor of Guadaloupe, falling under her bewitching 
influence, also loved her. 

Now, the worst part of the story comes. Alone in a 
French colony, living in a doubtful position at Govern- 
ment House, with the brand of murderess on her, I sup- 
pose she felt that she had sunk as low as she could, and 
that forever she was an outcast, so she accepted the 
advances of the French Governor, though she knew he 
had a wife alive in France. 

She went to France with him the following year, and 
lived with him till he died; then, generously or not, 
she returned to his outraged wif^ the fortune he had left 
her, his mistress. 

It was not till then that, friendless and lonely, she 
could be persuaded to accept the pardon the Bishop 
procured for her and to give herself, stained and sunken, 
but still, oh, so lovely and lovable, to the old man who 
had stood by her and loved her through everything. 

She was known in the county as the Wicked Lady 


AN OLD PORTRAIT. 


87 


Trevorley, and shunned and feared by all. My grand- 
father, however, loved and understood his mother, and to 
him alone did she drop that mask of unrepentant pride 
and show herself in her dreariness and despair, just as 
she looks at you in the gallery at Trevorley. 

After the Peace somehow or other Nevis languished, 
but even in its decay people used to talk of Miss Travers 
and tell their children of the time when it was as fashion- 
able and popular as any resort in Europe. 

Now, alas, she and the old days are well-nigh for- 
gotten, and the traveller who comes to this out-of-the- 
way spot reads in it only desolation and decay. 

Even now when a man and capable of judging unbi- 
assed of the character of Miss Travers, I cannot decide 
whether to censure or not. 

That she was wicked I know; but when I remember 
the elfect of that look in Lawrence’s portrait, I hesitate; 
the childish admiration comes back upon me strongly, 
and the charm of her personality which caused an aged 
Bishop and the French Governor to sacrifice so much for 
her fills me, and the words I told my grandfather in 
childhood come back to me — ’‘M love her so, I could die 
for her.” 

Yes, wicked and unrepentant she undoubtedly was, 
but lovable; and whether her restless spirit haunts the 
Towers, as they say it does, I know not; but this I 
know, that the face that haunted my youth and looked 
at me with its wonderful mixture of feelings out of the 
canvas in the gallery at Trevorley will ever be dear to 
me. 

Maybe her spirit, hidden somewhere in eternity, has 
felt the electric spark of sympathy, and quivered back a 
shock to me through the barriers of the grave. 



THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


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A draught that mantlec high, 

And seems to lift this earth-born frame 
Above mortality.” 


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THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


I WOULD not advise any one to read this story who 
is not fond of historical reminiscence. It is a memoir. 
My earliest recollections centre about an event that 
transpired in the latter part of this century. The sweep- 
ing glance of History will probably consider it the most 
important, the most far-reaching in its consequences, of 
any since the famous victory at Waterloo gave a much 
desired period of peace to a worn-out world. 

Look at it in what light we may, the Franco-Prussian 
War is the most notable event, thus far, in the last half 
of the nineteenth century. Wars of American Secession, 
Continental Wars, Sepoy revolts, all noticeable and 
important, pale visibly before the giant’s wrestle of 
France and Prussia. 

I was a toddling infant when an Empire fell at 
Sedan, when imperial, tinsel butterflies were driven into 
Cimmerian darkness by the pitiless crimson breath of 
Anarchy; and though the Commune, German Empire, 
Eugenie, Napoleon, Bismarck, Bazaine, Dispossession of 
the Pope, etc., were names and terms on the lips of 
every one in that day, yet to me they were utterly unintel- 
ligible, and, if heard at all, not even remembered. 

But still, I repeat, my first recollection goes back to 
that period, and the single event which fixed it indelibly 

91 


92 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


in my infantile brain is far fresher to-day than many 
another that has transpired since. 

Thousands of miles away from the exciting quips of 
news that were throwing Europe into a fever-heat, in a 
small West Indian isle, where the Atlantic blew in 
balmy freshness its sea-scented air, where life was care- 
less, easy, luxurious, and basked in sensuous pink radi- 
ance, beyond which the rest of the world and all its 
activities seemed as far distant as the planet Mars, a 
large and fashionable company were gathered at dinner. 

The dessert was being served; and in my best and 
stiffest starched pinafore I was led by my old nurse into 
the dining-room to pass in review before the guests, and, 
sitting beside my father, to have a taste of the cocoanut- 
ice, for which my childish appetite hungered. 

My father was a partner in a very old and prosperous 
house whose reputation was West Indian, and whose 
credit was practically unlimited. 

Added to these advantages, which would have been 
a passport into the best society in the colony, he was a 
polished scholar, and had travelled extensively in Syria, 
Egypt, and Arabia, when a tour through those provinces 
of the Sultan w^as exceedingly rare, expensive, and 
attended with great danger. 

My mother, the descendant of a proud and poor 
Border-family, was an accomplished musician, and a 
woman unaffected and charming in manners. 

Both of my parents were very fond of society and en- 
tertained a great deal. Invitations to their house were 
eagerly accepted from His Excellency down. 

On this particular night my mother was trying to catch 
the eye of the lady who sat on my father’s right, as a 
signal to rise and withdraw, when the butler handed the 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


93 


Governor, who was present, a brick-colored envelope. 
He tore it open and read aloud : — 


Official Cable to the West Indian and Panama Telegraph Com- 
pany, Limited, — Paris completely hemmed in by the Prussians. No 
chance for a sortie or outside relief of any kind. Communistic Revo- 
lution broken out in the city: every life in danger. Alarming 
scarcity of food. Three-quarters of the populace starving. Must soon 
capitulate. 

At the reading of this telegram an old lady, who sat 
close to me, clasped her hands and cried, “ My poor 
Amadeo! Thou art reduced to horse-flesh for supper, 
and a damp cellar for a lodging, while I live in luxury! 
May God spare thy life and restore thee to these withered 
arms 1 ” 

The dramatic utterance of the words and the woe- 
begone expression of the old lady fixed themselves 
indelibly in my memory. I can remember now my spoon 
with its luscious cocoanut-ice pausing on its way to my 
mouth, and my eyes staring in amazement on the theatri- 
cal dame. I can remember my pretty mother condoling 
with her, in her sweet voice, on her husband’s misfor- 
tunes, and every one trying to soothe her. 

His Excellency, in his courtly Irish way, said, — 

‘^Madame, had I known you were personally interested 
in this terrible siege, having a relative confined in Paris 
at this moment, I should have refrained from wounding 
your susceptibilities by reading the cable. Pray accept 
my humble apologies.’’ 

‘‘Don’t alarm yourself, Madame; I assure you that 
your husband’s being a foreigner will save him from 
harm,” said another. 

I remember her turning to me and sayins; in a quavering 


94 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


voice, “What a terrible thing it is! even this young 
child is impressed with its horror. Look at his eyes 1 

And surely my eyes must have been bulging from their 
sockets; for the thought of dining olf horse-flesh was so 
novel that I was amazed, and wondered what it would 
seem like if cook should serve up my pony. I wondered, 
too, what the old lady’s husband had done, that he should 
have to live in a damp cellar. He must have been very 
naughty, and could it be like our cellar — a great black 
hole, with coal in one corner and yams in another? And 
I thought how our cat, Tom, had been locked in there 
one night, as Low, the butler, said he was so big he 
would make short work of the rats, and how in the morn- 
ing, when the door was opened, he rushed out very 
frightened and all swollen with bites, which Low said 
the rats had given him. So impressed was I that I said 
to her, — 

“ Are there any rats in the cellar to bite him ? ” 

There was a faint murmur, and Madame turned away 
and said something which I suppose now was eJifant 
terribleJ^’’ Then the ladies rose, and Low threw open the 
drawing-room door, and nurse led me away to bed. 

I could not sleep for a long time, thinking of the poor 
man who lived in the cellar with rats and ate horses. 

That night I dreamed I was in our cellar with Madame. 
She was making me eat my little pony; and the rats 
were running about, and it was very dark; and I awoke 
frightened, and was only comforted by nurse telling me 
that I was in my own little bed, and that no one should 
make her darling boy eat what was not nice. 

For a long time after that I could never pass the cellar- 
door without shuddering. 

A few days later, I should think, my mamma gave a 


THE MUSE OE HISTORY. 


95 


lunch party, and Madame was present, very affable and 
cheerful, the cause of which I learned years after was 
the news that Paris had fallen and her husband, having 
escaped alive and well, had begged his dear Therese to 
come to him at once. 

To my childish e3'es she seemed wonderful. She must 
have been at this period sixty; her figure was petite and 
graceful, and would have given the lie to her age had 
not her hair been like driven snow. Her face was full 
of character, with dark and piercing eyes, which in her 
youth must have been luminous ; her features were 
decided, yet her whole expression was soft and her smile 
particularly sweet; her skin was smooth, but suggested a 
subtle use of cosmetics. She had the bel air of a grande 
dame., and people would turn to look at her as she rolled 
by in her carriage. 

But what impressed me chiefly was a certain theatrical 
manner she had when excited, which was very un-English 
and foreign. I was allowed to come to the table during 
lunch and sit next to my mamma, on the condition that I 
was very good. I heard a lot of strange words, which 
must have been French. I dare say they were talking of 
the war. When the ladies went into the drawing-room, 
my mamma said, in her winning way, to the old lady, — 

“Madame Calieri, won’t you sing something for us? ” 

Nothing loath, Madame went to the piano and sang an 
Italian aria, so I was told long afterward. She threw 
her head far back, and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. I 
wondered how she could play without looking at the 
keyboard. 

Her voice was very full and sweet, and I saw Low and 
some of the negroes peeping through the jalousies, their 
eyes and mouths wide open in amazement at the “French 
missy. ’’ 


96 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Then every one encored her and would not let her leave 
the piano till she sang again, and with a smile and dep- 
recatory shrug she sang, “Meet me by moonlight alone, 
love,’’ with a sad, far-away look in her eyes, which were 
fixed on the jalousies. I heard Myra, who tended the 
rose-garden, sniffling. She was half-witted and easily 
affected to tears. 

As for me, my eyes were fastened in a sort of fascina- 
tion on the singer. She noticed it, and some one said, — 
“You ought to consider it a great compliment, 
Madame. Was it not Madame Recamier who said she 
knew when she had ceased to be beautiful, because the 
boys in the street had stopped looking at her? ” 

And Madame said, “Ah, you flatter too much, my 
dear. You should have been born a French woman to 
turn a phrase so neatly ; ” and the lady laughed and 
blushed. 

At last the party broke up, and Lady Claude Vernon, a 
very beautiful woman and a very great woman, said, — 

“ I am going to Europe next year, Madame. I hope I 
shall see you.” Madame replied, — 

“The pleasure will be mutual, then; but I hardly know 
where I shall be, possibly at Copenhagen, as my husband 
is thinking of settling there.” 

Y^ears passed and I had grown to manhood, and was 
established in the great family house. 

My people had left Barbados some years previously 
and were living at Home, as my father, having made his 
“Pile,” as the Americans say, and retired from active 
business, had never cared to return to the West Indies. 

One winter, it must have been fully twenty years after 
the event narrated above, my mother brought my sisters 
out to the colony ostensibly to visit me, but in reality to 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


97 


renew old links of the past and give the girls a glimpse 
of West Indian life. It was quite a triumph for them. 
The mother, who had always been popular, was warmly 
welcomed back. The girls were pretty and known as the 
Misses Trevorley: the heiresses were eagerly sought. 

At Christmas I engaged rooms at the Crane, a delight- 
ful resort on the rocks of the East Coast, which was very 
fashionable, where strong breezes blew perpetually from 
the Atlantic. Among the guests at the hotel were two 
very old ladies, of whom, as soon as she saw them, my 
mother said, — 

“ Spencer, do you know who those ladies are ? I never 
forget a face. I should say they were Madame Calieri 
and her sister, Mrs. Caledon. I feel sure of it.” 

She never, indeed, forgot a face. I remember while 
travelling with her once on Lake Geneva, she noticed on 
the steamboat a handsome, military man, and said 
to me, — ' 

“ Where have I seen his face before ? It is very famil- 
iar. Oh, I know! he was A. D. C. to General Blenner- 
hasset at Barbados, when I was married; he was then 
Captain Thornycroft. ” 

Soon after the military gentleman went to the saloon, 
and I looked at the label on his luggage, and saw written 
“General Sir A. Thornycrof t. ” We introduced ourselves 
afterward. General Thornycroft remembered my mother, 
and inquired for several people in Barbados, and we 
travelled together for a few days very pleasantly. 

Finding an opportunity, my mother went over to the 
two old ladies and made herself known to them. They 
remembered her instantly, and were so glad to see her. 
The girls and myself were then presented, and Madame 
said, — 


98 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


‘‘Is this the boy I knew years ago, your first, Mrs. 
Trevorley? ” 

Well, she had not changed so very much in the twenty 
years. The eyes were still bright and piercing, and the 
figure still upright, but her face was greatly wrinkled. 
Her faculties were sharp, save for a slight deafness, and 
she still had the appearance of a grande dame. The 
theatrical manner was gone, and she was very ancient and 
stately now. The old childish memories came back to me 
forcibly. I had often since wondered what had become 
of her. The mystery in which she was shrouded kept the 
old recollections of her fresh. I had often inquired for 
her, but no one knew anything of her except that she was 
a sister to Mrs. Caledon, who was very ancient, and lived 
far away in the country. 

Seeing her again so unexpectedly brought the fascina- 
tion of her singular personality back upon me with its old 
force (she was unlike any one 1 had ever seen as a child 
or since). Knowing that her life must have been event- 
ful, I determined to talk to her, 

Finding her one day sitting alone with her face on her 
hand, looking dreamingly out of the window down on the 
turquoise sea, which was dancing in the sun below the 
cliffs, I went to her softly and said, — 

“Dear Madame Calieri, may I draw a chair next you? 
What a beautiful day it is! Surely the tropics have 
beauties as unrivalled as Europe. The Mediterranean is 
not bluer nor more crystalline than the Caribbee.” 

“I agree with you, Mr. Trevorley: this is the most 
perfect climate I have ever known. I was thinking of 
the Mediterranean. You roused me out of a revery.” 

The soft, balmy air was fanning us as we sat in the 
shade of the window. Outside nature was revelling in a 
golden glory. 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


99 


^‘Madame,’’ I said, ‘‘if you would continue your revery 
aloud, I am sure it would be interesting. They say you 
have had a wonderful career. My first recollection is of 
you. You were at dinner at my father’s when the cable 
came of the Commune, and you said your husband was 
shut up in Paris. Pray, Madame, would it be bold of 
me to ask you to tell me some of the wonderful events 
of your life ? ” 

“ Ah, I am very old now, past eighty. I have lived my 
life, and live now only in reminiscence and preparation 
to meet my God. I was born here, you know, and have 
come back at my sister’s earnest request — my sister whom 
I had not seen for twenty years — to die with her. We are 
neither of us in very good health, and the one who goes 
first will soon be followed by the other. I often wonder 
how, in my exciting life, I should have lived so long.” 

“ Why have you never written your memoirs, Madame ? 
They would be very interesting.” 

“Ah, my poor husband always ridiculed it. He said 
that only very famous people should do that, as the world 
was filled with the rubbishy reminiscences of unknown 
people, often very unreliable, and only written for money, 
and I agree with him perfectly; yet his and mine would 
certainly be worth reading.” 

“Yes, Madame, and worth hearing, too. Of course 
you have travelled much and met many celebrated 
people.” 

I saw that only by subtle coaxing she could be got to 
speak of what I was eager to hear. 

“Oh, yes, I began to live my life young. A child of 
twelve, 1 was sent from here by my parents to a boarding- 
school in Bath. When I was seventeen I was given three 
months of grace in which I was taken by my parents, with 


100 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


my sister, into the best society in Bath, prior to my return 
to Barbados. One evening at the Pump Room I was in- 
troduced to a gentleman much older than myself, and 
danced several times with him. He was the Chevalier 
Calieri, and the King of Sardinia’s Consul in London. 
He was the handsomest man I ever saw before or since. 
Judge for yourself,” and she opened a locket she wore 
and showed me a daguerreotype set in brilliants of a man 
of about forty, very distinguished, with a proud but soft 
face; he might have been of any nationality, save for a 
slight air of the courtier, which indicated at least one 
of the Latin races. 

“ I have had that for sixty years. We fell desperately 
in love with each other. I was considered very pretty 
and witty and vivacious then. I, who am now a feeble, 
broken old woman, can say it with propriety. Calieri was 
twenty years older than I, and I was seventeen when we 
were married. He had seen a vast deal of men and things 
in general, and his brilliant conversation fascinated me. 
Ah, how we loved each other, my Calieri and I! Just 
before we were married he had received news of his ap- 
pointment as Ambassador to the Czar Nicholas, and 
immediately afterward we left for St. Petersburg, passing 
rapidly through London, where 1 had never been, and by 
sea to the Russian capital. We stayed there three years. 
As Madame I’Ambassadrice, I saw a great deal of Court 
life. His Imperial Majesty was the most imposing of 
all the sovereigns I have ever seen. He was all-powerful 
and held in the greatest awe. It was a common thing to 
see caravans of prisoners going on foot to Siberia, 
chained to an iron pole. If one sickened or fell dead by 
the way, his arm was chopped off above the wrist, so that 
the hand might reach Siberia and show that the prisoner 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


lOI 


had not made his escape.^ While in Russia I learned to 
speak the language. We travelled in the suite of their 
Majesties once to Moscow, and again to the Black Sea. 
These progresses were truly royal ! I was very intimate 
with Army officers, and my husband used to entertain 
them in preference to other people, as he said one could 
never tell of what advantage they might be in after days; 
and though at this time there was no sign of war, yet it 
soon broke out, and my husband’s foresight was tested. 

“Among the people I met at St. Petersburg was An- 
tommarchi, the great Napoleon’s body physician. My 
husband had known him previously in Paris and in Italy. 
He was very interesting, and he and my husband would 
talk by the hour of wonderful people and events, while I 
would listen breathlessly; or they would smoke over 
cognac, while I sang to them. Calieri loved to hear me 
sing. Antommarchi would say, if I had taken to the 
stage, I should have had Europe at my feet, for my voice 
was as beautiful as my face, and that was like Diana’s. 
In 1830 Calieri was sent on a mission to Warsaw by the 
Pope. He had left the service of Sardinia, and would have 
left me in Paris, but I would not hear of it, and followed 
him, Antommarchi going with us. We arrived in Poland 
shortly before the war broke out, and spent the winter of 
1830 and 1831 in Warsaw. Our sympathies were wholly 
with Poland, and Antommarchi and I attended the hos- 
pitals daily, and spent our money freely in relieving the 
sufferers returning from the seat of war. But we were 
in Poland on a purely religious mission, and had nothing 
to do with politics whatever. 

1 A Russian told me that he had seen a similar case once when a caravan 
of exiles passed through his village in the Ural Mountains on its way to 
Siberia. — W. R. H. T.,Jr. 


102 


GOSSIP OF THE CAR IB BEES. 


“Those were very exciting times. It was said that if 
the Russians entered Warsaw, the population would be 
subjected to the grossest indignities; but Calieri said to 
me, — 

“ ‘ The'rese, you will see of what advantage our friend- 
ship with the Russian officers will be.’ And when after 
intrigue and despair in its midst, Warsaw capitulated, 
Calieri and myself on horseback went out to meet the 
Russian Army. Paskevitch entered the city at the head 
of his troops, very much thinned by the late battle, and 
looking more like a defeated than a victorious general. 

I had met the hero of the Persian war in St. Petersburg; 
and when he saw me he said, like the courtier he ever 
was, ‘Ah, Madame Calieri, I did not think to see your 
lovely face among my foes. Had I known the pleasure 
of seeing you was in store for me, I would have been at 
Warsaw sooner. ’ 

“We had nothing to fear, and by our influence several of 
our friends who had been very hot against Russia escaped 
the country. Poor Paskevitch! he was indebted to me for 
his life. At one of his leiJ^es an infuriated Pole, whose 
family was on its way to Siberia, attempted to stab him 
in the back. I was standing near and cried, as I saw 
the man approaching him nervously, ‘ Mon Dieu,' Paske- 
vitch, be on your guard; there is treachery here!’ It 
saved his life, and he was an ardent friend of mine ever 
after. 

“After I left Poland I never saw him again; but he 
wrote me regularly, and gave me a great deal of Court 
gossip and political news. I did not, however, go in for 
politics until years after.” 

Madame Calieri stopped speaking and sighed; she 
seemed in deep revery. My mind was a half-century 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY, 


103 


back in the thick of that bloody struggle when unhappy 
Poland spent such bravery in vain. 

‘‘And where did you go after leaving Poland, Ma- 
dame?’’ I had aroused her, and she went on with 
energy, as if she were living over the past. 

“After leaving Warsaw we took a very hurried trip of 
four months to America, where a brother of my husband 
was dying, and had sent for him. At the house of a 
Madame Rush, in Philadelphia, whose doors were always 
most hospitably open to foreigners, I met Joseph Bona- 
parte, ex-King of Spain. I spoke Spanish in addition to 
Russian, French, English, Italian, and German, and I 
later on learned Danish, for my husband wished me to 
speak all the languages he spoke. I addressed him in 
Spanish, to his great delight, and he never left my side 
for the whole night. He took the most eager interest in 
all the news of Europe that I gave him, and lamented the 
fate of his House. I met him afterwards in Italy before 
he died. 

‘ ‘ When we returned to Europe we went to Rome, and 
Antommarchi joined us. Gregory XVI. was Pope, but I 
only saw him once, for I was taken ill. Calieri took me 
to his castle on the Tiber, where our son was born. 
Calieri was a Papal Count, and his family had held the 
title for generations. My son was the last of the direct 
line, and we took the title again, which we had not used 
before. As soon as I was well enough to be left, my 
husband went on another mission to England, and I 
stayed at Calieri with my child for two years, so I 
speak Italian as fluently as English. 

“In 1836 I was in Florence, and my husband told me 
Antommarchi intended going to the West Indies on a 
tour, and would like to be of use to me. My old friend 


104 


GOSSIP OP THE CARIBBEES. 


was in Paris, and I sent him a package of papers to 
carry to my people in Barbados, and, at his request, I 
sent him my daguerreotype set in diamonds. 

“ Poor Antommarchi ! I never saw him after. He went 
to Barbados, and paid a long visit to my father; told 
him what a brilliant life I was leading, and how happy 
Amadeo made me. Then he went on his travels, and 
died in Cuba in ’38. He was one of the truest friends I 
ever had, and his death was a great shock to me. 

‘‘ In 1837 I travelled to London with Victor, my son, to 
join Calieri, and was present at the Coronation of Queen 
Victoria. I soon tired of England, and persuaded Calieri 
to try to procure some Continental post for a change. 
He was now established in the Papal service, which he 
did not quit, but once, till his death. Gregory did not 
like him, and instead of sending him to France, as he 
requested, sent him to Spain, where we remained for five 
years. -We were despatched to Madrid, and told to keep 
out of politics. The whole country was in the greatest 
excitement; the Carlist war was the all-engrossing topic. 
Our sympathies were with Queen Christina, and, in spite 
of Gregory’s order, we intrigued so as not to excite the 
Nuncio’s suspicion, and we succeeded finely. 

“In 1840 the war came to an end, and Espartero was 
all-powerful, and a great friend he became of ours. I had 
now developed such an interest in politics that, in his 
intrigues with England, he used me as an agent. Espar- 
tero was now Regent, and Queen Christina was in France 
intriguing to oust him; and he considered if he could 
induce England to befriend his government, he would 
gain an immense advantage. The Nuncio did not object, 
and I sailed from Cadiz for London, bearing despatches 
to several eminent statesmen in behalf of Espartero. 


THE MUSE OE HISTORY. 


105 


Unfortunately my ship was intercepted by the French, 
and I was carried to France, where I was under police 
supervision for some months, until Calieri could pro- 
cure my release. When I reached Madrid my ardor 
was in no wise cooled, but Espartero’s power was on the 
wane, and in July of ’43 he sailed for England, defeated 
in all his designs, and the only man who could have 
ruled Spain. 

“At the same time Gregory, or the Nuncio, who began 
to be jealous of Calieri’s influence, had him sent to Ger- 
many, and we arrived in Berlin in August, 1843. Here 
my daughter was born, and I was very delicate for a long 
time. My voice, however, still kept its strength and 
purity, and, unable to endure the excitement of politics, 
I lived a purely social life. I met a great many cele- 
brated people, and among them Mend2lssohn. He paid 
me a great compliment once at a large reception, by 
praising my singing, saying aloud, ‘Ah, Madame la 
Comtesse, would you but go on the stage, Grisi would 
no longer fascinate us.’ Calieri and I got to know him 
well ; in fact, he was as great a friend as Antommarchi had 
been. He has often played my accompaniments, when I 
sang, either in private or in society. At his request we 
named our daughter Leah. You, who see me now in my 
decrepitude, will pardon an old woman’s vanity, when I 
say that at this period my beauty was at its heyday. My 
figure was petite, but graceful, my hair was a bright 
golden, eyes dark and lustrous, and I had a fine skin. 
Under my courtly husband’s training I acquired the true 
bcl air. 

“Ah, Amadeo mio, what happiness you gave me in my 
life! May God in his mercy hasten the day when I. shall 
meet thee ! 


io6 


GOSSIP OF THE C A RIB BEES. 


“ In 1845 Calieri left the Papal service for a short time 
and entered that of France, at the instigation of M. Thiers, 
whom he knew quite well, -and with whom he corre- 
sponded. He was made French Consul at Copenhagen. 
Amadeo liked Denmark so much that he purchased 
property there, and we became so popular that when the 
French residents in Copenhagen sent Queen Amelie a 
present on her birthday of a Sevres tea-service, I was 
unanimously chosen to present it to her on their behalf. 
A fine compliment, was it not, to pay me? I travelled to 
Paris, where I had an audience with Her Majesty, who 
was the sweetest and most truly royal of all the ladies I 
have ever seen. I was in Paris three months, and had 
a delightful time, staying half of that time at the Tuil- 
leries at the Queen’s request. When I went back to 
Copenhagen, I think my head was a little turned, as the 
French Court was the most fascinating one I had ever 
visited, and I have seen them nearly all. It was an out- 
rageous fortune, indeed, which drove out in ’48 that 
refined lady and Queen. No more perfect woman ever 
held her place in France. 

“In the mean time, longing to get back to the Papal 
service, Calieri wrote to the Pope to ask him to give him 
an active diplomatic post, and he received a reply to come 
to Rome at once. So leaving me in Copenhagen and 
throwing up the French service, after about ten months of 
it, he returned to that of Rome. Pius IX. was now Pope; 
he and Calieri were related and had been children to- 
gether, and my husband was given a very high berth 
under the Nuncio at Vienna. Writing to me to proceed 
there, he at once left Rome for Vienna. I reached there 
in February, when the rumblings of revolution were 111 
the air, and one month later Prince Metternich, the great. 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


107 


the all-powerful minister, had fallen, and the whole 
country was in a state of anarchy. 

“Just a few days before he fled there was a magnificent 
ball at the palace for the corps diplomatique., and he 
was present. I remember distinctly the flush of pride on 
Calieri’s face when Metternich asked me for a dance, and 
later I danced several times with the Archduke Francis 
Joseph, so soon to be Emperor. Intensely interested as 
we were in politics, nowhere was there such a field for it 
as in Italy and Spain. We could do nothing with any 
side in Germany. The exciting scenes we were passing 
through only kindled my desire to be intriguing, and I 
suggested to Amadeo that now Pius was Pope he might 
send us back to Spain. After the revolution was over, — 
I had been in Vienna all through it and saw Kossuth 
enter like a king, — Calieri got leave and took me to 
America, as the doctors said my health needed a sea- 
voyage. 

“We were well received in the New World, and travelled 
extensively. What struck me chiefly was the simplicity 
and hospitality displayed. I hear it is not so now. We 
found everywhere the greatest interest taken in European 
affairs; and, at a dinner at the White House, I sat next 
to a senator who had known Antommarchi, my dear 
friend. The next day a paper was given to me with the 
curious headings they use in America; I have never 
forgotten it: ‘A Distinguished Lady in Our Midst, 
Madame la Comtesse Calieri of Rome, the Bosom-Friend 
of the Great, Europe’s most Ravishing Beauty. Her 
Mighty Influence with the Autocrat of all the Russias, ’ 
etc., ad nauseam, and then followed a column of descrip- 
tion and some extravagant remarks, such as, ‘ After the 
conquest of Poland the fair countess, by her beauty and 


io8 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


tears, persuaded the Czar to remit the punishment of 
many noble Poles, whose sentence for thwarting the 
despot’s will was that summit of all earthly torture, 
SIBERIA!’ 

“ I was told that my conversation with the senator had 
thus been grossly exaggerated; that he might serve up 
this morceaii for the public in his paper. Just fancy such 
a thing in Europe! In Boston we were entertained con- 
siderably, and I received any amount of flattery in the 
press, which in America is so fulsome. 

‘‘On returning to Europe we went to Rome, and His 
Holiness received us very kindly. Amadeo had a high 
place at Court, and I was requested to sing to Pius 
regularly twice a week, for he liked my voice and called 
me his ‘petite Grisi, ’ and his ‘‘petite h^etique^ though 
afterwards I joined the Church of Rome. 

“I was very happy, on the whole, in Italy, and we 
stayed in the country from 1849 to i860, and we had 
enough intrigue to satisfy the most ardent lover of politics 
and to fill a big volume of memoirs. How we aided the 
Pope to escape from Rome is a story of really Italian 
intrigue. Once disguised as a monk, I got through the 
Sardinian and French lines at terrible risk, and delivered 
certain despatches of great importance into Radetsky’s 
hands, and returned the same way. That would be a 
story worth telling and hearing, Mr. Trevorley. Ah! 
those years in Italy, what excitement, joy, and sorrow! 

“Just before the battle of Novara both of my children 
died of typhus-fever. They were at Calieri. Amadeo 
and I were very busy intriguing between the Pope and 
the Austrians, and the Pope and the French, and when 
we arrived at Calieri our son, the hope of our house, was 
dead. PTom that date we ceased to call ourselves by our 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


109 


title, and became plain Monsieur and Madame. It was 
a terrible blow, and I should have succumbed had it 
not been for the distractions of the times. 

“ We hated to throw over the Austrians after Solferino, 
at which battle I was present as an English priest; but 
though His Holiness would have had a strong Austrian 
power in Italy as a safeguard for himself, yet the intrigues 
he carried on with Napoleon were so successful, that 
France promised to support him, which she did till ’70. 

“In i860 we were again in Spain, and affairs were in 
such a state that we readily found means of joining the 
Queen’s side. I intrigued in Spanish affairs from that 
time, more or less, till ’80. In 1865 Amadeo got leave 
of absence and took me on a six months’ trip over Europe, 
visiting every capital from Lisbon to St. Petersburg, and 
London to Constantinople, and renewing many old 
acquaintances. 

“We were both separately approached by Garibaldi in 
Florence with tempting bait, if we would desert the Pope’s 
service; but Calieri owed a great deal to His Holiness 
and refused, and, in fact, we were too devoted Papists to 
listen to such a proposal. 

“Calieri returned to Madrid with very great power 
from the Pope. Pius always had the greatest confidence 
in him. My life was now one constant round of political 
excitement, and in 1868, after Isabella was driven out of 
Spain and the country was given over to revolution, I 
joined a conspiracy to bring back Alphonso, the Queen’s 
son. Calieri was in Paris now, nearly eighty, but not 
looking his age by ten years, and as active as when I 
first knew him. He was with Isabella, intriguing for 
French support. 

“At my house in Madrid the conspirators met nightly. 


I 10 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Our plan was well organized; and, when Isabella formally 
abdicated in favor of her son, we were almost certain of 
success. A certain grandee who had assurance that, if 
Alphonso were smuggled into Madrid and suddenly pro- 
claimed king, the people would welcome him, gave us 
the most concern. He also had a spite against Ser- 
rano, and thought by this means to embarrass him and 
win his post for himself, if the coup were successful. I, 
with several others, was opposed to such an open measure, 
and we had words one night. Swords were drawn ; the 
police were informed, and entered the house suddenly, 
seized us all, and took possession of the papers. My 
lord duke was imprisoned and not released till the 
Italian prince was king. I was carried to a fortress in 
Castile, treated with kindness, but closely confined, and 
with no news of the outside world. However, my friend- 
ship with the father-confessor of Serrano procured 
my release, and I was conducted to the Portuguese 
frontier. 

“Arriving in Lisbon, I heard that the Franco-Prussian 
war was at full swing, and that Calieri was at Rome with 
the Pope, where there was a terrible crisis oil the evacua- 
tion of the city by the French. He wrote me to meet him 
in Marseilles in September, which I did, and thought our 
diplomatic career was over. When we met, he wished to 
retire from active life and end his days in Denmark; but 
I, in my pride and folly, persuaded him to return to Paris, 
where some of Alphonso’s most powerful adherents were, 
and I, being in delicate health from my imprisonment, 
proceeded to Barbados on a visit to my people who were 
alive, and whom I had only seen but once since my 
marriage. 

“We went together to Paris, which was like a city 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


1 1 1 

already in revolution. Calieri stayed there, and I went to 
Southampton and thence to Barbados for three months. 

“ I had grown old suddenly. My hair had turned white 
while in imprisonment, and my nerves were terribly 
shattered. The sudden dashing by the high-handed duke 
of a plot so nearly successful, and in which I was so much 
interested, aged me, and from that date I lost my youth. 
It was then that you saw me, Mr. Trevorley, at your 
sweet mamma’s at dinner. I remember the occasion 
well. 

“When I returned to Europe I fully expected at once to 
plunge into a plot to set up Alphonso, and all the time I 
was in Barbados I received letters from Isabella and 
the principal partisans of her cause. Calieri met me 
in London, and I was stunned at his appearance. The 
siege of Paris had told on his energy, and being now 
eighty-one, he was too old to engage in any further 
activity. 

“ We went to Copenhagen to our house there, and lived 
quietly. I cut myself off entirely from the outside world, 
and devoted myself to the care of Amadeo. He was 
taken with a stroke of paralysis in December, ’72, and 
after another severe stroke ten days later, he died in my 
devoted arms. I thanked God for sparing him to me for 
so many years, and was nearly distracted with grief. 

“The Castle of Calieri passed to a distant and unknown 
relative, but I possessed the property in Copenhagen and 
a handsome income from my husband. Queen Isabella 
had heard of his death, and wrote me a very kind letter, 
begging me to visit her at Nymphenburg as soon as pos- 
sible. Nearly mad with loneliness, I set out and met 
there several old Spanish friends. By their persuasion I 
entered on another conspiracy, and actually entered Spain 


12 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


in disguise and spent nearly six months sounding differ- 
ent people very high up in office. I then went to Lon- 
don, where I hired a house in which I received the 
Spanish conspirators, and used my best efforts to secure 
the throne for Alphonso. We were entirely successful, 
and I had the intense satisfaction of entering Madrid 
with the young king. He made me Duchess of San 
Martino. I thought to end my days in Spain; but after 
the throne was firmly established there was no more use 
for me, and I left Madrid and settled down in London, 
where I took charge of my Barbadian grand-nieces who 
were being educated there. I never went back to Spain 
or Italy, and since 1880 have lived in absolute retirement. 

‘‘ Eighteen months ago my sister begged me to come out 
to the land of my birth and die with her. We live down 
in St. Lucy’s parish, on an old plantation, very quietly, 
and I feel as if I had outlived my time and were useless. 
I have passed out of the remembrance of nearly every one 
now, and most of my friends are gone. I am very lonely. 

Ah, my dear young man, I have seen a great deal of 
men and things, and have lived in the thick of many a 
plot and intrigue. My husband was a born courtier and 
a diplomatist, and being in great favor with Pius IX., was 
used by that sovereign on many important occasions, and 
gave me opportunities unrivalled of seeing life at its 
best. 

“I had the art of coalescing hostile factions, it was 
said, and thus, too, became an object of importance. My 
first attempt at such a thing was in mediating between 
Paskevitch and the Poles.” 

She stopped speaking and began to muse again. 

“Ah, Madame la Buchesse,” I said, “thanks a thou- 
sand times for this conversation. I feel as if I could 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


II3 

engage in some plot or obtain a diplomatic post at once. 
You have, indeed, had a remarkable and fascinating 
career. ” 

‘‘Mr. Trevorley, I have dropped my titles long since; 
it is a part of the dead past. I am only plain Madame. I 
am very old and feeble now, past eighty, and my thoughts 
are fixed on my God and my husband waiting for me. I 
must beg you to excuse me, sir; my conversation has un- 
settled me, recalling the past as it has so vividly. I am 
a moral for you to cogitate upon. Think of me as one 
who has met every celebrated person in Europe from 1830 
to 1880, and led a brilliant life, the companion and inti- 
mate friend of popes and sovereigns, now dying a slow, 
prosaic death in extreme old age, forgotten and forsaken 
in this far-away, unknown isle! ” 

As she finished speaking, she rose to her feet with 
emotion, and, leaning on a gold-headed cane, vanished 
down the breezy corridor, like some grande dame who 
had suddenly stepped out of an old canvas, and magic- 
ally summoned up the past before me and then dis- 
appeared. 

I sat where she left me, with all the wealth and glory 
of the tropics about me. I felt as though I were in a 
dream, out of which I must awake into action. 

Over across that sparkling, ever-changing sea lay the 
world where History, at that moment, was writing names 
and deeds in the indelible ink of Time. 

I thought of the wonderful career of Madame Calieri, 
and my Barbadian existence seemed imprisonment. 
The light, effervescing life of the gay colony seemed 
suddenly to mock me. My soul yearned for action, ex- 
citement, and intercourse with the world’s great. The 
very indolence and sensuousness of this life choked me. 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


1 14 

The next morning I saw Madame Calieri at breakfast, 
and I told her how she had unsettled me : how I longed 
and felt capable of doing something useful. I begged her, 
as the Duchess of San Martino, to help me. My truly 
tropical enthusiasm in nowise excited hers, which had 
been bred and nourished on war and revolution. 

“ I would throw up this business I am in here, Madame, 
to enter upon the sort of life you have led.’’ 

‘‘Mr. Trevorley,” said she to me, in a sort of inscru- 
table, cold manner, “I will give you an opportunity to 
prove your desire. You know by report in general that 
there has been a party in Italy that desires the overthrow 
of the Monarchy and in its place a Republic. To this 
party are joined the Roman priesthood, to which my sym- 
pathies have always belonged. I am too old to take any 
active part in these plots now, but one or two friends 
keep me well informed as to what is going on. If you 
are in earnest in this matter, Mr. Trevorley, I will rec- 
ommend you to a friend of mine in Rome, and he will 
introduce you to ones who will put you in the way of 
testing your ability and desire for intrigue. You are 
going to England in a few weeks, I believe, with your 
people. Behold the opportunity ! ” 

I was in raptures, and, bending over her withered, 
diamond-studded hand, pressed my lips to it. Her eyes 
shone in their inscrutable way; she seemed to emanate 
vague longings; her very appearance seemed to breathe 
History to my excited and enthusiastic brain. 

“But, sir,” she interrogated, “you do not seem to have 
any choice as to the side you are on? You are willing to 
follow the Church? ” 

“Whichever side you direct, that I follow.” 

vShe smiled at my implied compliment. After that 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 


II5 

I both saw and wrote to her often on the matter, and I 
began to feel already either a hero or a criminal. 

When I departed for England I had a large bundle 
of papers for her friend in Rome, who was to introduce 
me to different conspirators. Madame Calieri told me 
the bundle contained views of Barbados chiefly, and her 
diary, which, as being near the grave, she bequeathed 
to this gentleman. Signor Varosto, I believe, was the 
name. She gave me the package when I drove down to 
the far-away plantation on the rocks of St. Lucy to bid 
her farewell, and she wished me success and a regency 
or dictatorship. 

I never saw her afterward. She looked, standing in a 
door-way covered with jasmine, with a view of the sea 
in the distance, basking lazily in the afternoon sun, as 
if she were the Muse of History. 

Her figure was bent over her stick, but her eyes burned 
with youthful fire, and her whole face was full of power 
and will and sadness combined. Either she or her won- 
derful career had fascinated me. I believed in her. I 
kissed the hand she gave me with the bel air of the old 
world, and in my emotion dropped a tear on it. 

On my arrival in England I found my father danger- 
ously ill, and I wrote to Signor Varosto and told him of 
the bundle from Madame Calieri I had for him, and 
which I was delayed in bringing at present. I received 
his reply, which said to give it to a certain man he 
named who was travelling to Rome, and who would take 
charge of it for him. 

I did so. 

About two months later, my father being convalescent, 
I resolved to set out for Rome, when the day before I was 
to leave I was startled to read in the papers of a plot 


Il6 GOSSIP OF THE C A RIB BEES. 

against the Italian king, which had been discovered, 
and among other names of the conspirators was that of 
Signor Varosto, the leader. 

I abandoned my plan and wrote to Madame Calieri 
for advice, enclosing the paper. She never answered 
my letter. I thought she might be too ill to write or 
dead, but I heard vaguely of her afterwards as still 
alive. 

A few months later I met in London a man whose 
name recalled my old acquaintance. He was the Count 
di Calieri, a distant kinsman and inheritor of Madame’s 
husband’s estate. He inquired of her, and I told him 
what I knew of her, and how nearly I had become in- 
volved in the late plot in Italy. 

He was amazed. 

‘‘Ah,’^ said he, ‘‘over eighty and still active! mon 
Dieu, she is wonderful 1 I never saw her, but I know she 
is very notorious. She is well known to the police. She 
was in reality a spy in the Pope’s secret service. I 
don’t suppose she told you that. When she went to the 
West Indies lately it was at the request of the British 
Government, for, old as she was, she was plotting all she 
knew to restore the Papal power by a revolution. She 
was one of the most dangerous women the middle of 
this century has produced. My dear sir, if she had 
been younger, she would have used you and duped you 
and probably brought you to the scaffold or an Italian 
dungeon.’^ 

And he told me of a young Austrian officer she had 
made her slave and dupe in ’59, out of whom she wormed 
a secret which, transferred to Pius’s ear, caused him to 
court Napoleon with success, and finally brought her 
adorer to death. He was detected, court-martialed, 


THE MUSE OF HISTORY. 11 / 

sentenced to be shot, and fell riddled with bullets. “Ah, 
sir, she was dangerous, beautiful, and a spy!” 

My eyes were suddenly opened to Madame Calieri. 
I saw she had read me like a book, and, feeling she 
could rely upon me, had endeavored to use me for her 
own ends. 

She could no more do without intriguing than without 
breathing. I was a fine opportunity to send to her 
friends some important documents. I was to be used 
by them ; they would probably make me the instrument 
to accomplish their ends, and, if they failed, I would be 
sacrificed. 

I was a fool, and a madman, and Madame Calieri knew 
it; but it was a God-given opportunity, and she could not 
resist it. 

Had I carried the bundle of papers to Rome and met 
the conspirators, the chances are that I would have been 
cast into some Sicilian fortress and ended my days there. 
It was by the merest chance that my folly did not carry 
me there. My pride was hurt and my ardor cooled. 

I am quite content to look on at the making of history 
without any desire to help in the undertaking. I have 
learned to be very careful whom I cultivate, and have 
grown suspicious of distinguished strangers with an 
historical past. 

The ordinary, careless people I meet in Barbados 
society are quite pleasant enough, and I would rather go 
to Polo or Gymkhana than bear despatches to intriguers, 
even if, as Madame Calieri said, a regency or dictator- 
ship lay at the end of the road. 




*3 




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FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS. 


“Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? 
No — she never loved me truly; love is love for evermore.” 

Locksley H all : Tennyson. 




FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS. 


Reggie Chase was seven and twenty and a clerk in 
the Public Works Office on seventy pounds a year. Miss 
St. Maud was three and twenty and the loveliest girl in 
the colony. 

Miss St. Maud’s name was painted on all the sugar- 
drays and mule-carts on the richest plantation in the 
eleven parishes. Reggie’s six feet of bone and muscle 
were magnificently put together, and he was far and away 
the most popular chap in the colony. 

Miss St. Maud was thoroughly self-possessed; Reggie 
was very shy and intensely sensitive. 

He was one of a very large family, which, like so 
many of our large families in the Empire, was scattered 
all over the globe. 

His father was the Vicar of St. Bede’s, where the St. 
Mauds worshipped. And Reggie had loved Miss St. 
Maud ever since a little chap, in stiff-starched and spot- 
less surplice, he had gazed with timid blue eyes at her 
from the chorister stalls as she sat in the roomy family 
pew beside her papa, a dainty little creature with long 
golden ringlets and a wondering angel face. 

He had loved her when at children’s parties she would 
drop the handkerchief behind him, a signal to kiss her if 
he could. But he always blushed so furiously, and was 


I2I 


22 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


SO bashful, and little Miss St. Maud was so swift, that he 
never attempted to catch her. 

When the kissing days were over and Miss St. Maud 
was more sedate, they would ride together in the after- 
noons along the interminable cane-fields, she on a Ja- 
maica thoroughbred, as became a little heiress, and he 
on the Vicar’s old roan cob. And her beauty filled his 
heart so he scarcely dared look at her. 

Later on she went Home to boarding-school ; and when 
she said good-by to him, it seemed as if all aim had gone 
out of his life, and for some time he was very lonely. 

Miss St. Maud came back when her school days were 
over; and she was grown so beautiful and elegant that 
Reggie, man that he was now, sighed to himself and 
tried to avoid her. She seemed far too wonderful for 
him to even gaze at. 

But Miss St. Maud had by no means forgotten her old 
playmate, and Reggie was among the first she asked for. 

Now, in the years she was absent Miss St. Maud had 
been very carefully educated at a very select school. 

In the holidays she had visited at castles and manor- 
houses, and met the very best people ; and when the 
school days were over her papa had taken her on the 
grand tour. 

So Miss St. Maud was by no means an ordinary young 
lady, but had already seen considerable of life. 

Reggie had never been away from the colony but 
once, when the Barbados Cricketers, of which Eleven he 
was the Captain, had gone down to Trinidad and over- 
whelmed that colony with defeat. 

That was his first victory, and the memory of it had 
always been a proud one for him. Since then, it was 
said, there wasn’t a cricketer or tennis-player in all the 


FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS. 1 23 ^ 

West Indies his match. But if Reggie had only had our 
insular advantages, he had, nevertheless, made the best 
of them, and his modest, retiring manners had made the 
big fellow such a favorite that he was always in demand. 

Miss St. Maud had seen so much of high life at Home 
that colonial society soon bored her, and she appeared 
quite indifferent to all the attention she received. 

There were some people mean enough to say that she 
considered herself too good to ever marry any one in the 
colony. But if her oval eyes always looked at you coldly. 
Miss St. Maud was not proud. She was merely apa- 
thetic, and the ethereal beauty lacked an aim in life to 
give interest to her surroundings. 

Reggie was quite unlike all the other men in the 
colony, but just how he differed it was hard for her to 
say. 

After a few meetings, for Miss St. Maud had no inten- 
tion of suffering such an old-time friend to desert her, 
she easily read his secret. It amused her more than 
otherwise. Here was a splendid specimen of manhood, — 
she had never seen a more perfect one, — devoured with 
love for her: a man so bashful and considering her so 
far above him that he would die sooner than speak to 
her. 

No, Miss St. Maud had never met a man like Reggie, 
and the novelty of the thing stirred her curiosity. 

She told herself that here was a man who, for manli- 
ness and inborn refinement, could put to the blush many 
a more gifted and better born acquaintance at Home. 

Now, Miss St. Maud knew that there was a man in 
London, old enough to be her father, who would give her 
a coronet in exchange for her own exquisite self and her 
acres of sugar-cane. 


124 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


He was very poor, — almost as poor as Reggie, — but 
what a splendid name he bore ! 

She had half made up her mind to take him, but some- 
how she could never bring herself to write the answer for 
which his withered old heart was sighing. It takes a deal 
of reflecting for a rich and lovely girl to throw love to 
the winds and mate with an old man. 

The more Miss St. Maud saw of Reggie the less likely 
did he seem to be able to declare his love. Now, Miss 
St. Maud wasn’t a coquette at all; but she could not 
help wondering what Reggie would be like if his love 
should ever get the best of his bashfulness. 

The idea haunted her; and, her curiosity now thoroughly 
aroused. Miss St. Maud determined to find out. 

It is a dangerous experiment for any woman to try, 
and so Miss St. Maud found. 

Fortified as she was with all her cold ideas and sense 
of her own strength, she was' not proof against this attack 
on this man’s heart. 

Miss St. Maud finally gave up the battle, and decided 
not to write to the old earl in London. Her passionless 
interest had been aroused to an uncomfortable degree, 
and Miss St. Maud could think of nothing but Reggie 
Chase. 

It was a hard temptation to Reggie not to yield ; but 
he was poor, he had no prospects, and she was so far 
above him in her wealth and education and refinement, 
that he would not seek to raise himself to her level, 
dreading, even if he should succeed, the consequences to 
her. 

Now, Reggie may have been wrong or right, but his 
sense of honor was exceedingly sensitive. 

Mr. St. Maud died suddenly. Miss St. Maud was over- 


FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS. 


25 


whelmed with grief and all alone now in the world. 
Reggie longed to give her his sympathy. 

The Sunday after the funeral she was in her usual 
place in the family pew, and Reggie, who still sang 
among the choristers, was strangely moved. The solitary 
little figure in sombre black seemed to look at him wist- 
fully every time he glanced at her, half shrinking in the 
big pew. It reminded him vividly of his childhood, and 
he had a choking lump in his throat. 

All his resolves melted in the face of that look; and 
that very evening, when the pale stars twinkled in the 
silent air and Jupiter in solitary moon-like splendor cast 
long shadows on the white ground, he walked across her 
cane-fields and told her how he loved her. 

Miss St. Maud had heard many a tale of love before, 
but never such a one as Reggie’s. The end of it was 
that Miss St. Maud, to her own surprise, accepted him, 
and we all thought it an excellent match. 

They seemed immensely happy too. Miss St. Maud 
appeared very proud of Reggie, and Reggie, big dear 
old chap, was another man. 

Never was seen such devotion. 

Miss St. Maud had at last named a date for the wed- 
ding, and Reggie was riding into Bridgetown one Sunday 
evening shortly before it, wondering whether such happi- 
ness as his could last. When he reached the top of the 
hill at Bishop’s Court, his pony shied at a black mass in 
the coral road. He dismounted to see what it was, and 
found that it was a man lying in a dead faint. 

Reggie raised his head and fanned him with his hat, 
and after a while the man revived. He recognized him 
as the young Wesleyan minister who was creating such a 
stir among the native people, and the multitude of whose 
converts was astonishing. 


126 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


“ Where am I ? ” he asked dazedly, as Reggie helped 
him to his feet. 

“ I found you here in a faint. If my mare had not 
shied, she would have trampled you. 

“Thank you, sir, for your timely help. I have had a 
great deal of work of late which calls me all over the 
colony, and, as I have not a horse, I walk. It is exhaust- 
ing in this climate.” 

He was scarcely able to stand; but suddenly , his 
strength seemed to come back, and he asked anxiously, — 

“ Have I time to reach Bridgetown before nine? They 
expect me then at Bethel.” 

“Yes, if you will take my mount; but, my good fellow, 
pray don’t think of any further work to-night: you’re not 
strong enough,” replied Reggie. 

But the young Wesleyan smiled sweetly and raised 
his eyes to the glittering stars. 

“ He will give me strength to do His work,” he said. 

So they went on together. 

And as they went, Reggie put his arm around the waist 
of the young minister to steady him as he sat on the 
pony, dreamily holding the reins. 

Now and then the night breeze whistled gently through 
the dark cane-fields on both sides of the road, and t e 
long fantastic shadows of the two men and the pony 
were cast before them on the white coral highway. 

Reggie never forgot this night; it was the turning-point 
in his career. He went with the Wesleyan to Bethel, 
and when the delicate and exhausted young man arose in 
the pulpit, all his strength seemed come back to him. 

His fluent, bell-like voice 'and piercing, hollow eyes 
were magnetic. 

Reggie had never seen such zeal, never heard such 


FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS. 


27 


marvellous language. The young minister seemed trans- 
figured; he glowed with saintly fire. 

Reggie had never been in a Wesleyan chapel before. 
Here the few white people present sat side by side with 
the blacks. There was no stained glass, no stately ritual, 
no easy pews, no people of his own walk of life. 

Four white-washed walls with gaping windows looked 
down upon benches crowded with earnest, devout people, 
some in rags and barefoot, some clean and well-dressed. 

Eager negro heads were wedged together in the win- 
dows, and the doors were blocked with people far out 
into the street, alf hanging in silent, holy enthusiasm on 
the burning words of the young minister. 

It all moved Reggie deeply, and when he left Bethel 
that night, he was filled with a great love for the young 
Wesleyan — a love which bound him to him with the 
inspiration and awe it excited. 

He was filled with a sudden sense of uselessness, and, 
at the same time, the glowing ardor of the young minister 
opened up vistas — opportunities to do good, the reward 
of which was past all earthly joy. 

Long after he had left the chapel the noble and inspir- 
iting exhortation of the revivalist rang in his brain; it 
never left him; it haunted him by its urgency and its 
beautiful promises ; it forced him to go again and again 
to hear the young man, and, in the end, Reggie, in a fer- 
vor caught from the contagious zeal of his new friend, 
gave himself by an oath for good or for evil to the cause 
of God. 

After he had made up his mind, he was strangely calm 
and happy. When we conquer self, we always get a 
laurel-wreath of inner joy. 

The enthusiastic young minister was a source of per- 


128 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


petual encouragement to him. He strengthened him to 
meet the enemy, and helped him in the worst of the fight. 

For Reggie had to fight a battle now such as he never 
dreamed he would be able to survive. 

Now, the Wesleyans are, without doubt, the very back- 
bone of our West Indian moral life. They do an im- 
mense good, but solely among the native people. To 
the upper classes and society they are objects of utter 
indifference and even scorn. So for Reggie Chase to 
come forward and declare that he was going to join the 
Wesleyans and take orders, was, to say the least, a stag- 
gering bit of news. 

He was so accustomed to win victories in cricket and 
tennis that, the first fire of ridicule and friendly banter 
opened upon him, he easily repelled. 

He didn’t care what his set said; that was of little 
consequence. But the battle began when he broke the 
news to Miss St. Maud. 

Reggie told her the whole history of the affair, from 
the time he found the young minister lying in a swoon 
in the highway down to the singular and powerful effect 
he had had on him. 

Miss St. Maud listened to Reggie in wonder. 

She had heard of such a thing as hypnotism, so she 
concluded that the Wesleyan had hypnotized Reggie. 
She was a very self-possessed girl was Miss St. Maud, 
and she never did anything without first weighing the 
consequences. 

On this occasion she asked Reggie to bring the minis- 
ter to see her. She wanted to judge what kind of a man 
he was. 

Reggie was delighted, and felt sure that she would be 
converted as he had been. 


FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS. 


129 


At a glance Miss St. Maud saw that he was no ordi- 
nary man; she had occasionally met men like him before 
— men who had sacrificed all the comforts of refined 
homes to live in Whitechapel and nurse scarlet-fever 
children. and typhus patients. 

She recognized that he was a gentleman, and she saw 
that he was in earnest in his life work. 

But Miss St. Maud didn’t like earnest people; they 
bored her. 

She treated the Wesleyan cavalierly, and, in her well- 
bred way, tried to make him appear ridiculous. 

But the earnest young man was too simple and honest 
to give heed to her cleverly veiled sarcasms, and Miss 
St. Maud was too clever not to understand that a battle 
with this young minister would be utterly illogical. 

So she turned all her batteries of love and beauty on 
Reggie, determined to bring him to his senses again. 

Now, Reggie loved Miss St. Maud tenderly; but the 
word of God, as it had fallen from the young minister’s 
lips, had stirred in him sentiments which, while they 
intensified, if possible, his love for her, at the same time 
made it subservient to the wonderful new love for God. 

Miss St. Maud was not the least bit imaginative. 
Reggie was decidedly so. 

Miss St. Maud’s love was aroused by curiosity and fed 
by the novelty of the thing. Reggie worshipped the 
ground she walked on. 

Well, Miss St. Maud began to review the situation 
when she found that Reggie was holding prayer-meetings 
in sailor boarding-houses, and singing Wesleyan hymns in 
the garrison hospital, and that the black people were 
following him about. 

Miss St. Maud read Reggie thoroughly; she knew it 


130 


GOSS/P OP THE CA RIB BEES. 


was a tremendous sacrifice for him to make, and she knew 
that he was honest and true all through, and she respected 
him for it. 

But Miss St. Maud was too great an heiress and too 
dainty and lovely to bury herself with a man, because 
she loved him ever so much, in a mission camp in 
Africa, or hob-nob with black people and Wesleyans. 

She didn’t want to give him up; she knew it was like 
parting with something particularly valuable; but she 
couldn’t marry a Wesleyan minister, and so she told 
Reggie. 

He listened to her quietly. 

He had tried once or twice to offer her her liberty, but 
it had been more than he was capable of. 

He didn’t plead with her; he did nothing she expected 
he would do. 

“ You are right, Beatrice; I couldn’t expect you to be 
a Wesleyan minister’s wife. It would kill you. Oh, 
it is very hard to give you up. But I never deserved 
you, you are too far above me, and when I won you, it 
seemed as if the joy were top great and couldn’t last. 
You wouldn’t wish me to dishonor myself; you know 
what this new faith is to me, — how I have pinned my very 
soul to it, — and to go back now would be cowardly; it 
would be impossible. It is like tearing out my heart to 
give you up. I hadn’t the courage to do it before. But 
it is for the best. You will be happier, and I — I shall 
always love you.’’ 

Miss St. Maud said nothing. What could she say? 
But she felt singularly cold and cruel. 

They were sitting in Miss St. Maud’s drawing-room, 
and the afternoon sun was casting long shadows on the 
walls. Outside in the mill-yard they could hear the 


FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS. 131 

chatter of the monotonous voices of the native women as 
they fed the huge mill with the sugar-cane. That dreary 
sound and the revolving swish of the mill-sails were the 
only noises that broke the silence for awhile. 

They sat looking at each other with varying thoughts. 

It must be their last meeting. Reggie would never 
have the courage for another. It was to him a last 
draught of love. He was drinking in her loveliness and 
branding her forever on his brain. 

Suddenly Miss St. Maud leaned forward and stretched 
out her hand to Reggie, but he would not take it. He 
knew if he did, his resolutions would melt like wax. 

Miss St. Maud drew it back proudly, and again they 
faced each other in silence. 

The shadows in the room began to fade into the gray 
light which immediately follows the setting of the sun. 
The noise of the mill and the women ceased. 

Miss St. Maud once more made a motion toward 
Reggie. 

This time she rose and dropped softly on her knees 
beside him — an unusual act of affection on her part. 
Miss St. Maud was not demonstrative. 

She rested one hand lightly on his shoulder, and in 
the half-light, as she moved her head, the ripples of her 
golden hair seemed like snakes of fire. Her beautiful 
eyes were quivering with light, and Reggie could hear 
the soft rise and fall of her breath. 

She seemed to him like a spirit trying to tempt him. 
He rose quickly and shook off her hand. 

‘‘Why do you tempt me, Beatrice? You know I can- 
not yield, and you would never be happy as a minister’s 
wife.” He almost laughed at the idea of such a thing. 

Miss St. Maud rose also from her suppliant posture 


132 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


and looked at him coldly. She tried to hate him, but 
she could not. Reggie went on, 

“ It is better we should never meet again : if I saw you 
often, it would unman me, Beatrice, for you are part of 
my life. I have loved you so long. Oh, darling, if you 
could only have the inner joy that I have ! 

Miss St. Maud still made no reply. Reggie could see 
she was very angry. 

“Beatrice, I am going now. For Heaven’s sake let us 
not part like this. We may never meet in this world 
again. 

“And you will prefer your new Wesleyan beliefs 
to me } ’’ 

“Oh, Beatrice, Beatrice!” he said sadly. 

“ Be it so then. It was a dream, this love, and I was 
a fool to indulge it. Good-by, Reggie.” 

She held out her hand limply. He took it and would 
have drawn her to him, but she shrank back. He raised 
his head and said wildly, — 

“Oh, my God, help me! I make this sacrifice for 
Thee!” 

The next moment he was gone. 

Miss St. Maud could hear his footsteps echoing across 
the mill-yard. Such a man was worth living for, worth 
dying for. She rushed to the window to call him back 
to tell him she would marry him, missionary, Wesleyan, 
whatever he was. 

But the cool evening breeze soothed her as she leaned 
from the window, and she hesitated. 

“Bah!” she murmured, “what an idiot I was near 
making of myself! Poor Reggie! ” 

Well, everybody said Miss St. Maud acted rightly, and 
thought Reggie Chase had taken leave of his senses. 







FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS. 


133 


Reggie was ordained a minister very shortly, and, as 
there was a great work to be done on the west coast of 
Africa, he went out to the Wesleyan mission on the 
Niger. 

Miss St. Maud went Home and married the old lord, 
and lives in all the elegance and refinement she values 
so highly. No one knows whether she regrets the great 
chance of her life or not. 

And Reggie? 

Reggie never came back to the colony. He did a 
vast amount of good out on the Niger, and labored faith- 
fully in the vineyard of the Lord. He was always the 
same big, gentle old fellow, and the black people adored 
him. 

Last year he and his devoted little band carried the 
Gospel to the wild tribes of the interior, and by some 
misunderstanding they were all massacred. 

The king sent Reggie’s belongings, a Bible and an 
old medallion, with his apologies, back to the Coast. 

Somehow they found their way to his people in Barba- 
dos. The medallion was worn so smooth it was scarce 
recognizable, but the word St. Maud was still discernible. 

Reggie’s father sent it to England to the beautiful 
original. 



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THE WAR OF THE AMAZONS. 


“ Strange ! all this difference should be 
’Twixt Tweedle-c/ww and T\vttd\t-dee ! '* 

Epigram : Pope. 




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THE WAR OF THE AMAZONS. 


It was a famous strife, and it isn’t really over yet. A 
sort of guerilla warfare is still kept up, but the battles are 
indecisive, and the chieftains rarely engage their forces 
nowadays, unless, from some coign of vantage, one sees 
a chance to swoop down and pierce the other with barbed 
arrows. 

It was famous because of the unrivalled generalship 
displayed, and because the combatants were all women; 
they were none other than Lady Claude Vernon and the 
Clan Heriot. 

While the war waged in its bitterest fury it was espe- 
cially interesting, and bulletins from the seat of war were 
regularly issued and eagerly devoured. 

But after the great defeat which practically put an end 
to the contest, public interest died, and it was only 
remembered as the W'ar of the Amazons. 

It was a case of engaging a Hydra, as Lady Claude 
said; for though the Heriots in nowise resembled that 
monster of antiquity, yet it was one fighting single- 
handed against unlimited numbers. The Heriots were 
a large, clannish family in the colony, whose ancestors 
were among the first settlers, and, of course, they were the 
very best people, by virtue of their pedigree and estates. 
Heriots from time immemorial had filled all the best 

137 


138 


GOSSIP OP THE CARIBBEES. 


offices and owned the best land in the colony; they were 
sort of territorial princes: a Heriotwas of the salt of the 
earth. In addition to this great influence and position, 
they had another lever which kept the clan popular and 
fresh in the public memory, and that was the number of 
attractive Heriots of the tender sex. 

At Oldcastle, at Mornington, at The Grange, lived 
Amazonian Heriots who were particularly pretty, bright, 
and popular. 

Mrs. Heriot of The Grange had three daughters; and 
Helen, the youngest, was the loveliest girl in the colony. 

As a child, she had betrothed herself to Freddie Drake, 
Lady Claude Vernon’s son by her second husband, and 
every one supposed that sometime or the other they would 
be married. 

When she first came out from Home she went a great 
deal in the garrison set, and fell desperately in love 
with Captain “ Adonis ” Desmond, with whom her cousin, 
the beautiful Lisa Heriot of Mornington, was also in 
love. But when the fair Helen found her charms of no 
avail on the Captain (he afterwards broke Lisa’s heart 
and married a girl at Home to whom he had been 
engaged all the time), she turned her attention to Barking 
of the 2d West, and wrote to Freddie Drake, who was 
studying medicine in Edinboro’: Why hadn’t he 
answered her last letter sooner? and did he think he 
could treat her so cruelly and she wouldn’t resent it? 
He was a bad, wicked man to engage himself in Scot- 
land to another girl, as she heard he had, while he was 
still engaged to her. He had made her very miserable, 
but she prayed he would be happy and do well ; but she 
never, never, never wished to see his cruel face again, 
and she should do her very best to forget him. 


THE WAT OF THE AMAZONS. 


139 


And she straightway accepted Barking, who was head 
over ears in debt and one of a Hampshire curate’s nine- 
teen children; but he was an ofRcer, and that made up 
for much that could be desired in lovely Helen Heriot’s 
giddy brain. 

PYeddie Drake, who was very much in love with her, 
had been studying hard to get his degree. This news 
cut him up awfully, and he went to the bad. 

Lady Claude was very indignant at the treatment he 
had received, and, being very jealous of the Heriots, 
took it upon herself to declare war on them. She wrote 
to The Grange Mrs. Heriot, telling her that Helen had 
shamefully jilted her son. Was he not good enough for 
a Heriot.? Was he not a great deal better than a Bark- 
ing, and was not a connection with Lady Claude Vernon 
most desirable in every way, et ccetera 

Thus was the gauge thrown down and at once picked 
up by The Grange Mrs. Heriot, aided by her daughters 
and their cousins and their aunts. 

Lady Claude was a sort of censor in the colony. She 
was awfully entertaining, and very, very popular with 
men — there were few women younger than she who could 
make themselves so attractive. Besides, her position 
and her constant round of entertainments gave her plenty 
of attention and power. Yet, notwithstanding all this, 
she had her enemies. 

Before she married Lord Claude and came to the 
colony, the Heriots had been at the very top of every- 
thing. To possess an invitation stamped with the 
Heriot crest was greater honor than to dine at Govern- 
ment House. 

On Lady Claude’s arrival all this was changed. She 
was so decidedly clever and so perfectly charming, and 


140 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


her parties were so delightful, that she outbid the Heriots 
and became the acknowledged leader of civilian society. 

All sorts of nasty things were said of her, and the 
most frequent epithet applied to her was ‘‘Trinidad 
nigger.” 

We West Indians, when we dislike a person, call him 
a “nigger;” it is the worst expression we can find in our 
vocabulary of denunciation, and means that he or she 
has a “lick of the tar-brush,” though in nine cases out 
of ten there is not the slightest foundation for the oppro- 
brious assertion. Each colony has more or less reason to 
be jealous of the other; and at times when, from some 
political, commercial, or social cause, intercolonial rela- 
tions are strained, we in one colony will loudly deny the 
existence of a pure white race in any other colony save 
ours. 

Our abuse doesn’t get much beyond besmirching our 
neighbors. 

With us to call one a “nigger” means everything, and 
settles all further talk on the subject. Every person in 
the West Indies who has ever had cast upon him the white 
light of prominence has had this epithet applied to him; 
it is unfailing, and without this abuse he would not feel 
as if he had been properly abused. 

Lady Marker, who happened to be born in Jamaica, 
but whose parents were English, was called to the last 
the “Jamaica nigger.” 

It is not elegant, but then what abuse is elegant? So 
Lady Claude Vernon had this stone cast at her too; but, 
as she said. What did it matter? the fact was patent that 
she had driven the Heriots from their arrogant position, 
and yearly held it more securely herself ? 

The Clan Heriot eagerly took up the gauge Lady 


THE IV A R OF THE AMAZONS. I4I 

Claude had thrown down, for it was the chance of 
chances for them to try to injure her. 

Now, at first sight it would seem a very unequal con- 
test; for Lady Claude stood alone, and had not even the 
assistance of her daughters, who were either married and 
living in other colonies or at school. The Heriots were 
bound together to drive out the usurper, and were a power 
from sheer force of numbers. 

It happened once that a Heriot employed in the Public 
Works Office died on the eve of one of His Excellency’s 
balls, thus keeping fifty Heriots from the festivity. The 
garrison contingent also did not attend, for the men 
would not go to a dance where the Heriot girls were not 
present. 

The first skirmish took place at the Polo grounds. 
Lady Claude Vernon was talking to the General when 
The Grange Heriots arrived, and sailed past her without 
recognition. 

Mrs. Heriot began to talk animatedly to the Gen- 
eral with the eldest Miss Heriot to back her; and the 
other two Misses Heriot impudently beckoned to an officer 
to come to them in the very face of Lady Claude, who 
had just turned to speak to him, and was using all her 
arts to keep him beside her. But he watched his chance 
and joined the girls, who shot steel glances at Lady 
Claude. 

This first skirmish was well planned and executed, and 
Lady Claude retired discomfited; but it was only to rally 
her forces. Hearing that on the Governor’s Friday recep- 
tion there would be a little dance for the German ships 
of war, at which The Grange, the Mornington, and the 
Oldcastle Heriots would all be present, she anointed 
herself with the oil of the newest French invention, and, 


142 


GOSSIP OF THE CAP/P BEES. 


with a naturally sharp tongue sharpened to an edge with 
repartee of satire and hate, went to. Government House 
purposely late. 

The Heriots were there in full force, and Helen and 
Lisa looked so ravishing that for a moment her heart 
faltered. But pride was at stake; her position as leader 
of colonial society was at stake. She really looked 
frh grande dame., and the German Commodore asked The 
Grange Mrs. Heriot who she was. When he found she 
was a ladyship, he was introduced and was excessively 
polite, whereupon Lady Claude, exerting herself to the 
utmost, soon found herself surrounded by all the German 
officers, for she was the one person in the room who could 
speak German. 

Now she was in her element, for no woman in the 
colony could amuse a number of men at the same time 
like Lady Claude Vernon. That afternoon she grappled 
unto death with that Hydra-coil of Heriot serpents, and, 
as they were all present, the Heriot rout was a mighty 
one! The Governor paid her marked attention, seeing 
the Germans were so taken with her; she danced with 
the Commodore who hadn’t danced for years; she had the 
satisfaction of feeling that she had never looked better, 
never been more brilliant, and never more decidedly 
vindicated her claim as head of society. 

The Heriots, too, felt she had worsted them. Now 
and then a stray German would saunter up to a Heriot and 
burst into raptures over Lady Claude, only to rejoin the 
circle around her and laugh in the German way over some 
witty thing she was saying. As rats are said to desert 
a sinking ship, or as courtiers rush from a dying monarch 
to throng the ante-rooms of the new one, so the Heriots 
were made of little account. 


THE WAR OF THE AMAZONS. 


143 


Lisa and Helen and the pretty twins from Mornington, 
just out from Home, could not stem the flowing tide, and 
sat out many a' dance alone. 

The Oldcastle Mrs. Heriot, who had driven in the 
heat of the day fifteen miles across the island, had to 
drive back again later without any refreshment, for no 
one paid any attention to her, and she had the mortifi- 
cation to overhear Mrs. Bunce, whose husband had made 
a fortune out of artificial manure and whom Lady Claude 
had taken up, ask who she was — she, Mrs. Heriot of 
Oldcastle, whose husband, Mr. Heriot Pryce Heriot, had 
been Speaker of the House for years ! 

Yes, it was a very bitter rout, for the Clan Heriot had 
to witness Lady Claude’s triumph in silence. 

If you disparage people who are popular, it is put down 
to envy, and the Heriots knew that any remarks they 
made would be attributed to spite. 

Lady Claude Vernon had plucked out the poison-fangs 
of the Hydra. At the first arrow shot from its bow-string 
every one knew that the war would be exciting, and it was 
the chief topic everywhere. 

Lady Claude was in the habit of entertaining often and 
on a large scale, and the Heriots certainly missed a great 
deal of amusement. Lady Claude said she wanted to see if 
it were not possible to give things without a Heriot. The 
remarkable feature of all this petty strife was that the 
Heriot girls, pretty and popular as they were, and the 
Heriot mammas, clever as they were, could not with all 
their influence drive out Lady Claude from her position. 

As I have said, we all looked upon this war with breath- 
less interest. Some of us thought they would come to a 
truce, but others said it would be death to the knife. 

The greatest victory won by Lady Claude and which 


144 


GOSSIP OF THE CAR/BBEES. 


demoralized the Heriot forces for a time, was known as 
the capture of Barking. She broke off Helen’s engage- 
ment with Barking and kept him dangling about her; for 
Barking was a silly fellow and loved society, and un- 
doubtedly Lady Claude’s house was a better one to have 
open to him than the Heriots’, who did not entertain 
often. 

Lady Claude boldly wrote to Barking and invited him 
to a Sunday afternoon. Now, Sunday was a gala day at 
the Vernons, and the best people went, and Barking had 
heard a great deal about it. So he accepted, and Lady 
Claude made a lot of him, and introduced him to the 
Bishop, and got him an invitation to Bishop’s Court to a 
dinner; and the result was she had carried the war into 
the enemy’s own camp and dealt them a terrible defeat. 

Barking, weak and silly as he was, was, nevertheless, a 
Heriot fortress, and she took him by assault. 

After this the Heriots were routed and worsted on 
every quarter, and the flag of Lady Claude Vernon floated 
triumphantly throughout the land. But, like Hannibal 
after Cannae, this matchless general rested on her victories 
and never dreamed that a Zama awaited her. 

To the Mornington Mrs. Heriot was given the credit 
of the plan. She was, or had been, very beautiful in her 
youth, and had Martinique Creole blood in her veins. At 
the time of the capture of Barking she was in the French 
colony. On her return, like Marius at Carthage, musing 
on the gloomy ruins of her family, she contrived a plan 
to again battle with the enemy, and the idea was to attack 
Lady Claude and not wait till Lady Claude attacked 
them. 

The Fleet was due, and, as usual, there was to be a 
great deal of gayety. Lady Claude always entertained 


THE WAR OF THE AMAZONS. 


145 


the Fleet. The Mornington Mrs. Heriot proposed to 
entertain it herself on a scale of great splendor and on 
the very same date as Lady Claude. 

When the Fleet came on its yearly visit it was custom- 
ary for the Governor, the General, and the Garrison to 
give dances on three successive days — naval etiquette 
demanded that the Fleet should return this embarras 
cT hospitalite before it left. This year it was to stay but 
five days. 

Mrs. Heriot wrote to the Admiral, whom she had 
known years before, to make Mornington his home, 
together with his wife and daughter who were with him, 
during his stay in port. 

He telegraphed his acceptance from Antigua, and the 
Heriots kept their manoeuvres very secret. 

Lady Claude Vernon sent out invitations to all society, 
save the defeated Heriots, to a ball on the fourth night 
of the Fleet’s stay. Before the invitations could be 
answered the Mornington Mrs. Heriot, who had been 
informed that Lady Claude had issued hers, immediately 
sent out her own invitations. Lady Claude’s were, as 
usual, ^‘in honor of Her Majesty’s Fleet;’’ Mrs. Heriot’s 
were to meet Rear-Admiral Lord Suffield, Lady Suffield, 
and the Honorable Miss Suffield.” 

People imagined from this that the Admiral and the 
swell set in the colony would not be at Lady Claude’s; 
and when it was known, as it very soon was, that the 
Suffields were to stay at Mornington, almost everybody 
regretted Lady Claude’s invitation on the plea of Mrs. 
Heriot’s prior one. 

At the first dance at Government House the Heriot 
girls, in ravishing gowns from Home, were the rage when 
they entered the ball-room with Lady Suffield, and the 


46 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Fleet went wild over them. When the Fleet found that 
the Heriot girls would not be at Lady Claude’s, a few of 
the men just dropped in for an hour, doing duty, they 
called it, and then left for Mornington, and the Admiral 
and his family never turned up at all. 

It was wormwood to Lady Claude, after her previous 
victories ; and the few people who did come to her were 
people, like the Bunces, whom she had taken up and 
pushed forward, and who witnessed her mortification. 

The dance at Mornington was a great success, and the 
following day Lady Suffield entertained on the flagship 
quite a gathering at lunch ; but not Lady Claude, who was 
invited with everybody else later on to the afternoon 
dance. 

The Heriots monopolized the entire Fleet from the 
Admiral down, and there were enough Heriots to do it. 

Lady Claude was quite ignored, and went away early in 
disgust. 

After the Fleet left, the colony was startled with the 
announcement that Helen, lovely and fickle, was engaged 
for the third time to young Suffield, his father’s flag- 
lieutenant and heir to the barony, and the twins from 
Mornington were also engaged to naval officers. Lady 
Suffield and the Honorable Miss Suffield did not go away 
with the Fleet, but remained at The Grange till the Royal 
Mail Steamer went Home. The Grange was open house, 
and at Mornington Mrs. Heriot gave Sunday gatherings 
with music. Lady Claude was wiped out literally. After 
that she gave up the contest, and shared the leadership 
with the Heriots. 

A certain set still fear and court Lady Claude ; but the 
Heriots despise and defy her, for they feel able now to 
cope with her. 


THE WAR OF THE AMAZONS. 


147 


Occasionally the old animosity flares up, and Lady 
Claude will score a point; but as for discrediting the 
Clan Heriot, that she is unable to do. 

Such was the affair known as the War of the Amazons, 
a scandal upon which society fed heartily. 

If we West Indian men had only half the ingenuity of 
our womenfolk, how easily would the wheels of that heavy, 
cumbersome machine, the House of Assembly, roll ! 
Verily, we should give our wives and daughters the 
suffrage. 




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AN INCONVENIENT DEVOTION 


" Zarca. ‘ Ay, 

Such love is common : I have seen it oft — ’ ” 

Spa7iish Gypsy: George Eliot. 


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AN INCONVENIENT DEVOTION. 


Ras Tybji was a coolie and indentured on a Trinidad 
plantation. He was slight of build, with a delicate face, 
and in disposition he was very sensitive. 

Working in the cocoa-grove when it was damp made 
him ill, and he was threatened with consumption. Ras 
Tybji was a Calcutta coolie, and much given to melan- 
choly. He was disappointed with Trinidad. The promises 
made him in Calcutta before he indentured himself had 
not, it is true, been broken, but the picture of the life in 
the cool of the cocoa-trees was not as attractive as it had 
looked when seen from a glib Emigration Agent’s office 
in Calcutta. When his health broke down, he had grave 
thoughts of returning to India; but nearly all his people 
had come over with him, and India would not be the 
same without them, so he stayed and did odd jobs about 
the plantation. 

Ras Tybji had a cousin in Port of Spain who was a 
conjurer, and did the mango-trick and the still more won- 
derful rope-trick. Ras Tybji had a great respect for this 
wonder-working cousin. What coolie didn’t ? 

There was something to inspire a sort of grave regard 
in the tall, silent, expressionless man who, in broad day- 
light and in the public street, could throw a coil of rope 
into the air and then, as one end uncoiled itself and hung 

151 


152 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


down, climb up it, hand over hand, and finally disappear 
from view, taking the rope with him. 

Ras Tybji’s cousin did this singular trick, and he could 
also tell fortunes with cards. He told Ras Tybji not to 
go back to Calcutta: that a great good luck would come 
to him if he stayed in Trinidad; so Ras Tybji stayed. 

Captain Sefton, a retired Goorkha officer, owned the 
cocoa-plantation on which Ras Tybji worked; and when 
he came out to live upon it, he was taken with the appear- 
ance of the delicate, sad-faced youth. The laws of in- 
denture are very strict and binding on both sides. Sefton 
was humane; and when he perceievd that Ras Tybji was 
totally unfit for plantation work, he did not have recourse 
to the law, which would have allowed him to get rid of 
him, but made Ras Tybji his body-servant. A mutual 
liking sprang up between them. Sefton used to tell his 
friends that he had a jewel of a coolie-man; that in all 
his experience in India he had never seen one like him. 
Coolies are like faithful, affectionate dogs when they 
take a fancy to one and become willingly the most 
devoted slaves. 

Ras Tybji’s case is a common one. The easy life 
suited him, his health improved, and his melancholy 
vanished. He could read, and he devoured the books in 
Sefton ’s study. Sefton taught him to write, and used to 
speak to him of his old life in Calcutta, and was alto- 
gether so kind and considerate that he won Ras Tybji’s 
heart. 

If Sefton had told Ras Tybji to bring the Pitch Lake 
,at La Brea to his plantation, he would have tried to do it. 

One day Ras Tybji’s cousin, who did the wonderful 
tricks, came to see him, and Ras Tybji made a great deal 
of him, and paid him a vast amount of deference. For 


AN INCONVENIENT DEVOTION 


153 


hadn’t his fortune come true? hadn’t he a great good luck? 
The cousin received Ras Tybji’s homage soberly, as his 
due, and after giving an exhibition of his marvellous tricks 
at the coolie quarters, he bade Ras Tybji good-by, con- 
gratulating him on his luck, but warning him not to 
think too much of it lest it should prove transient. 

Now, Ras T'y^ji was always wondering how he could 
ever show Sefton his gratitude; it was his one thought. 
Sefton was to him the personification of all that was 
noble and lovable. It was the chief thing he talked of; 
and his fellow-coolies used to call him “Sahib Sefton,” 
and laugh at him quietly behind his back, for they all 
thought Ras Tybji was a trifle gone in the head. 

At last Ras Tybji had an occasion to show his 
gratitude. 

The Trinidad sun and pepper-pot have about the same 
effect on a man as the Indian sun and a fish-curry. Sef- 
ton, having experienced the latter, fell an easy victim to 
the former. His liver, like many another man’s, suc- 
cumbed. For a long time the doctors in consultation 
looked very grave and talked in low tones and Ras Tybji’s 
heart sank. 

He nursed Sefton himself, and was so gentle and 
attentive that Sefton wouldn’t have the hospital nurse 
from Port of Spain at all, but sent her back as soon as 
she came, to the entire satisfaction of Ras Tybji. 

These were days of painful pleasure to the coolie. 
He wore his heart in his big, mournful eyes, and devoured 
the yellow, parched-up Sefton with his hungry gaze of 
affection. 

When Sefton recovered, he told every one in Ras Tybji’s 
hearing that he owed his life to him, and would put his 
hand on his shoulder and pat him. 


54 


COSS/F OF THE CA RIB BEES. 


At these times Ras Tybji, in a burst of affection, would 
fall on his knees and kiss Sefton’s feet. 

Sefton would often tell him playfully, to notice the 
effect of his words on the youthful coolie, that he ought 
to be married; that such a handsome fellow as he ought 
not to be single. 

Then Ras Tybji’s soft eyes would fill with tears, and 
he would ask Sefton passionately what he had done that 
he should speak so to him; that his heart only had room 
in it for one love, and that was already filled with his 
master. 

Sefton liked this devotion, perhaps it flattered his 
pride; and he became, if possible, more continually an 
object of intense worship to Ras Tybji. 

Sefton, though he lived in the country, was very fond 
of society, and on one of his many visits to Port of Spain 
he met Miss Fresitas, and fell in love with her. 

This young lady’s father was a Portuguese salt-fish 
merchant, and her mother had ‘‘a touch of color;” she 
herself was considered a beauty, though Ras Tybji, when 
asked by his susceptible master for his opinion, said 
sulkily that she was not worthy of his sahib in any 
respect. 

This answer of the jealous coolie angered Sefton, and 
he was quite cool to Ras Tybji after this. 

Ras Tybji was miserable; he felt he had offended 
Sefton when he should have been most particular to 
please him. 

The days passed, and the pleasant chats with Sefton 
were at end. 

The truth was that Sefton’s mind was too full of Miss 
Fresitas to think of Ras Tybji now. 

Ras Tybji would weep passionately and bewail that 


AN INCONVENIENT DEVOTION I 55 

his dear sahib’s eyes were no longer turned to him in 
friendship. It told upon him, so that he began to grow 
thin and delicate again. His love could brook no rivalry; 
he must be first in Sefton’s heart or die. 

Sefton invited a party of friends down to his place, and, 
of course. Miss Fresitas came. He showed her every- 
thing about the place, and introduced her to the people 
as their future mistress, making a neat little speech in 
reference to duty of masters and servants. Sefton was 
very fond of ceremonial and propriety. He also pre- 
sented Ras Tybji to Miss Fresitas as his most devoted 
and faithful adherent. While he was speaking, he rested 
his hand in the old kind way on Ras Tybji’s shoulder, 
and his voice had the old familiar ring. 

Ras Tybji’s heart thumped tumultuously; he caught 
Sefton’s hand and kissed it, and would have run and 
thrown himself at Miss Fresitas’s feet; but his sensitive, 
mobile face that expressed his feelings so frankly lost its 
gladness, and with the soft, pleading eyes turned in mute 
appeal to Sefton, he ran from the room. 

Miss Fresitas had merely taken the somewhat marked 
reference to Ras Tybji, as she had the address to the 
negroes and coolies, as a necessary evil to be got through 
as soon as possible. 

She barely glanced at Ras Tybji. 

His sensitive nature saw in her indifference a presage 
of the future, and for the first time a decided despair 
seized him. As usual when in trouble, he consulted the 
advice of his esteemed cousin, who did the wonderful 
tricks. 

This individual resided in Port of Spain, and, not 
finding him at home, Ras Tybji sought him in the 
street. He found him in the Almond Walk with an ad- 


56 


GOSSIP OF THE CAR/BBEES. 


miring crowd around him, negroes whose faces expressed 
amazement, whites gazing critically and curiously, and 
coolies standing about indifferently, taking the whole 
thing as matter-of-fact, yet with an air of pride that the 
performer who could draw such an admiring crowd should 
be one of their race. 

The wonder-worker had placed on the pavement an 
empty flower-pot, and, after making passes over it, took 
from his girdle a large silk handkerchief and waved it in 
the air. This he spread over the pot, and again making 
various signs, he drew off the handkerchief and exposed 
to view a fruit-bearing mango-tree. Again waving in 
the air the handkerchief, he covered the mango-tree, and 
after the usual mystification of signs and passes, disclosed 
to view the empty pot. After picking up the coin flung 
to him, he took up his belongings and started off, when 
Ras Tybji touched him. 

The miserable, jealous fellow told his cousin every- 
thing; how Sahib Sefton was going to marry a proud 
lady, who was not of his sahib’s caste either, but dark 
and ominous; how she had cast a spell over him, so that 
he no longer looked upon his Ras Tybji with the old 
favor; how fearful he was lest when his sahib married 
her she would drive him away; and he was very miserable, 
and he begged his good and great cousin to help him. 
He who did the mango-trick and the still more wonderful 
rope-trick looked at Ras Tybji silently for a time. He 
was no fool, — these Indian jugglers are far from fools, — 
he understood the whole case, and he would have laughed 
a pitying laugh had it not been that he did not wish to 
hurt Ras Tybji ’s feelings. 

There may have been something in Ras Tybji’s great 
belief in him, or it may have been a feeling of sympathy 
for his poor, simple relative, for he said, — 


AN INCONVENIENT DE VO TION 1 5 J 

“If you wish to break the spell of the dark lady and 
regain the love of the sahib, send her away secretly and 
carefully,” and he went on his way, leaving Ras Tybji 
half in despair and half relieved. 

The cipher in this somewhat oracular advice the 
cunning coolie took to mean “poison.” Ras Tybji was 
disturbed by doubts as to how Sefton would feel when 
Miss Fresitas had been “ sent secretly and carefully away;” 
but they did not long assail him. He believed so im- 
plicitly in his cousin, and not being troubled with qualms 
as to the wickedness of the deed, he soon came to the 
conclusion that he would joyfully follow his juggler- 
cousin’s advice. 

The difficulty now lay in the accomplishment of his 
design. 

Ras Tybji found an opportunity finally. 

Miss Fresitas and her papa and mamma came to Sef- 
ton ’s to stay a few days to prepare the house prior to 
the wedding. 

Ras Tybji, whose method of “sending Miss Fresitas 
away secretly and carefully” was by sweetening her 
coffee with powdered glass, had been for days secretly 
engaged in his little room, carefully crushing an old 
bottle till he had reduced it to finest powder. 

He always waited on Sefton at breakfast, for his 
jealousy had long since caused him to usurp the butler’s 
functions. 

He was mixing the coffee with a trembling hand at a 
side table, and had put into Miss Fresitas’s cup the 
powdered glass, when some one in the pantry outside 
called him ; he paid no attention, so engrossed was he in 
the deed that was to restore Sefton to him. 

Finally, after repeated calls from the pantry, Sefton 


158 


COSS/P OF THE CARIBBEES. 


ordered him to go and see what was wanted. As he 
obeyed he saw Sefton holding Miss Fresitas’s hand in 
his and looking tenderly into her dark, luminous eyes. 

A sharp pang of jealousy shot through Ras Tybji, and 
he could scarcely see to leave the room. 

When he returned, to his dismay, he could not remember 
which cup was destined “to send Miss Fresitas away 
secretly and carefully.” He could not serve the coffee 
he had prepared, as Sefton might get the wrong cup, and 
there was Sefton calling to him to hurry with the coffee. 

He trembled with fear, and his senses completely 
deserted him. Mr. Fresitas said, — 

“What the deuce is that fellow up to? he’s acting very 
strangely.” 

“Ras Tybji!” roared Sefton, “let us have the coffee 
at once. What is the matter with you? ” and getting up, 
as Ras Tybji did not move, he went to the table, pushed 
him aside, and took up two cups to pass them himself. 

“No, Sahib, no!” cried Ras Tybji, “don’t drink it; 
it’s poisoned! ” and he burst into tears. 

They all started to their feet, and Sefton, with an iron 
grip on Ras Tybji ’s shoulder and an angry voice, de- 
manded an explanation. 

Then it all came out — the poor coolie’s intensely 
jealous devotion to Sefton and his bitter jealousy of 
Miss Fresitas or any one else who should share Sefton’s 
affection with him. 

Poor Ras Tybji! He was not given over to justice. 
Sefton’s humanity read the fellow through ; and he refused 
to take action, though Papa Fresitas stormed about letting 
murderers go at large, and Mamma Fresitas wept and 
pitied her daughter, who was to be married to a man so 
indifferent to attempts on her life. 


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AN INCONVENIENT DEVOTION I 5'9 

Miss Fresitas laughed and let Sefton have his way, but 
a laugh that meant — 

“ Do what you will now, later on you will do what I 
will.’’ 

But Ras Tybji was discharged and driven away from 
the plantation with threats and anger by the man he loved 
and for whom he would lay down his life. 

He knew he was never to see Sefton again and never 
to hear his kindly voice. 

The dark lady had won and he was broken-hearted. 

He never even thought of going to his cousin, who did 
the wonderful tricks; he felt there was no hope for him 
any more. Two days later, while walking in his cocoa- 
grove with Miss Fresitas, Sefton noticed at one end of 
the walk something dark lying on the ground; a swarm 
of flies were buzzing loudly over it. Miss Fresitas gave 
a little scream and clung to Sefton. 

Ras Tybji lay there dead, broken-hearted, with an old 
soiled glove of Sefton’s pressed to his lips. 


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MADEMOISELLE NARSAC. 


“ She only said, ‘ The night is dreary, 
He conieth not,’ she said; 

She said, * I am aweary, aw'eary, 

I would that I were dead ! ’ ” 


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MADEMOISELLE NARSAC. 


She was very pretty, with a slight and graceful form 
and a face full of expression, whose large hazel eyes, 
even at their merriest, had a touch of pathos in them. 
Oh, she was very pretty and her complexion was wonder- 
ful, so delicate and perfect, and it lasted without the aid 
of art, even in our climate, which slays so many brilliant 
skins. 

She was very young, too, barely seventeen, and had 
had a sad little life. 

When she drew her first quivering baby-breath in Paris 
no fairy god-mother was present with all sorts of wonder- 
ful gifts. On the contrary, it seemed as if some wicked 
fairy had frowned on her. For when she was scarce five, 
a tearful, lonely little morsel of humanity, she had been 
packed off to the care of a grandmother in the Jura. 

In the peaceful village, in spite of the wicked fairy’s 
frown, she grew to girlhood and was happy. The sweet 
air from the grand old Jura mountains put the roses in 
her cheeks, and the innocent, honest daily life of the 
little hamlet, hemmed in by those mighty mountains 
from the turmoil and despair of that arch-fiend, the world, 
made her and kept her innocent and honest. Yes, in 
these girl-years Mademoiselle Narsac was happy. 

Suddenly, one terrible day, that arch-fiend, the world, 
163 


164 


GOSS/P OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Stole into the peaceful village, and the grand old Jura, 
with all their faithful, silent watching and all their 
serried ranks of rugged peaks, could not keep him out. 
He came in the form of Death, his fearfullest guise, and 
robbed Mademoiselle Narsac of her truest and dearest, 
her grandmother. 

It was sad, undeniably sad, on the day following the 
burial to see that little delicate French girl in deepest 
black, sitting in the old diligence and bidding the friends 
of her girlhood good-by. 

The diligence-man cracks his whip, the benevolent old 
priest, her instructor and confessor from infancy, places 
in her hands a small rosary, and murmurs brokenly a 
benediction. She is weeping bitterly now, and can scarce 
see through the tears the young friends who cry out 
bravely, to cheer her. 

Bon voyage ! Adieu! An revoir ! Au revoir I'^'^ 

The diligence moves off, and for a moment they catch 
sight of a pale, pathetic little face, with big tears in the 
lustrous eyes, and a little black-gloved hand waving fare- 
well. Then the heavy mail-coach lumbers out of the village, 
creeps slowly up the mountain-side, turns a bend in the 
road, and passes out of sight, bearing Mademoiselle Narsac 
forever from the purity and happiness of her girlhood 
into the dazzling, sordid world. Truly a fragile bit of hu- 
manity and in danger of being broken by rough handling. 

In the interval since she had been sent away by her 
parents. Papa had met a gay Russian prince and fallen 
deeply into his power, and Mamma, Parisian butterfly, 
was flirting and dressing and enjoying life as she could. 
The Russian prince saw Mademoiselle Narsac, and 
desired to marry her. Papa’s debts should be cancelled. 
Mamma should have I don’t know how many thousand 


MADEMOISELLE NARSAC. 


165 


roubles to squander on dress and Paris. But little Made- 
moiselle Narsac had learned to look upon life as serious 
and not a sham, and she would have none of your Rus- 
sian princes if she did not love them. Papa stormed, 
Mamma coaxed a la Parisienne^ and the Russian prince 
entreated, but Mademoiselle Narsac was stubborn. 

The end of it was a decree of banishment, or, rather, a 
case of running away. She wrote to an English lady 
whom she had met every summer at the Jura village, and 
who was interested in her, and begged her to help her. 
She followed her letter, and burst upon the English lady, 
a sad little waif of a French girl. 

As in duty bound, the English lady befriended her, and 
in time got her a place as French mistress in the Princess 
Victoria School for Young Ladies in the West Indian 
colony of Barbados, which seemed to Mademoiselle 
Narsac, who had been accustomed to look upon the world 
as bound by the Jura, like going to the other end of 
Nowhere. 

Hitherto her life had been quiet and plain; her only 
glimpse of a gay world was the short time with her parents 
in Paris, and that was gayety of a very questionable kind. 
Imagine, then, what a revelation it was to her to come out 
to Barbados and find herself all at once in society and 
invited everywhere. For colonial society absorbs every- 
thing, and a young and pretty French mistress of the 
Princess Victoria School for Young Ladies gave a new 
relish to its jaded palate. 

So Mademoiselle Narsac found herself of more impor- 
tance than she had ever been in her life before. The 
Head Mistress flattered her openly, lauding her to the 
skies, and telling every one her history. 

The ladies at first petted and pitied her, and the men 


1 66 GOSSIP OF THE C ARID BEES. 

raved over her. Most people’s heads would have been 
turned by all this attention; but the little French maiden 
only became merry and very talkative and fond of life, 
which for the first time she was seeing through rose- 
colored glasses. 

She had very high ideals, and everything she did or 
felt was done or felt excessively. Like many of her 
race, love, when it came to her, would mean her life; it 
would be an all-consuming passion, and were it unre- 
quited or bruised, it would be like wounding her danger- 
ously. 

The first year in the colony she was very happy. The 
second the climate began to tell on her; she grew very 
thin, and her eyes were larger and sadder and skin more 
highly colored. The doctor said her heart was weak and 
that she must avoid excitement. 

The third year she met Dennis O’Brien, a young Irish 
chap, who had just come out to the colony as an engineer 
for some company. 

He wasn’t good-looking, he wasn’t particularly clever, 
in fact, he was quite an ordinary sort of a chap; but he 
had very good manners, and most women liked him. 
Mademoiselle Narsac fell in love with him at sight, — 
the sort of love one reads of in French books, the sort 
she had always imagined for herself, love a la Marie 
Bashkirtseff. 

Now, at this time the Arethusa ” was the ship on the 
. station, and Rokeby was one of the naval engineers. 
Rokeby was good-looking and a thoroughly manly young 
Englishman; he came of a good family, and in time 
would undoubtedly rise to a well-paid post in the navy. 

He was very poor, — most naval engineers are, — but 
he loved little Mademoiselle Narsac to distraction. She 


MADEMOISELLE NARSAC. 167 

was a good girl, and, to her credit it must be said, she 
did not encourage him at all. He was for leaving the 
navy and looking for some more lucrative employment, if 
she would have him. 

He wrote her long, despairing wails from Jamaica or 
Bermuda or Halifax; and when the “Arethusa” dropped 
anchor in Carlisle Bay, he was at the Princess Victoria 
School for Young Ladies as soon as a boat could pull 
him ashore. 

But Mademoiselle Narsac was obstinate, and would 
only marry the man she could love with her idea of love. 

Dennis O’Brien saw that she loved him and naturally 
felt flattered. Mademoiselle Narsac could not conceal 
her feelings — the whole colony had the benefit of them. 

As far as the world could see, O’Brien was only polite 
to her, but otherwise paid her no attention. He was one 
of those calculating men, who always manage their 
actions so that the world will never censure them. How- 
ever, he did encourage her, and in such a way that peo- 
ple spoke only of how immodest Mademoiselle Narsac 
was in showing her liking for him so plainly, and how 
awkward it must be for him. She was in such a state 
of high, nervous excitement from the climate and her all- 
consuming passion that one of his long, deep looks would 
satisfy her for a whole day, or a meaning pressure of her 
fingers at parting on a tennis lawn would leave her pale 
and breathless, but unspeakably happy. 

The world never saw this subtle flirtation on his part, 
of course, but it meant volumes to impressionable little 
Mademoiselle Narsac. 

He did all this to keep alive her fancy for him, which 
flattered him, and for the mere pleasure of flirting in a 
way which nobody could detect; and he would make 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


1 68 

all manner of fun of the poor little girl behind her 
back. 

Her character was as plain as an open book to him, and 
he thoroughly realized how natural it was to her to make 
such a public display of her feelings. 

Utterly unaccustomed to our Anglo-West Indian ways 
or to any society at all, Mademoiselle Narsac did not 
understand the necessity of cloaking her actions; and, 
besides, her poor little heart was brimming over with 
love which was past her control. 

Rokeby saw the game O’Brien was playing, and he 
could do nothing but curse his luck and long to thrash 
him. 

One night, at a dance. Mademoiselle Narsac was 
looking particularly lovel)% and O’Brien, contrary to his 
custom, put his name down on her card for several dances 
running. This unusual attention excited her greatly, and 
she was almost hysterical. Rokeby, who was present, 
could not even get a dance, and was very miserable and 
jealous. 

When O’Brien’s dance came he led the flushed and 
trembling girl into the garden, and while he spoke to her 
in his soft, cooing way, endeavored to steal his arm round 
her waist. She rose from her seat indignantly, and said 
some words that smote unpleasantly on his ear. The 
next moment she was sobbing passionately and begging 
his pardon for speaking in such a manner to him. 

O’Brien could not bear to see any woman weep. Fear- 
ing guiltily lest some one should pass and see them, and 
determined at all hazards to quiet her, he made violent 
love to her, overwhelming her with his words. 

Mademoiselle Narsac was radiantly happy; she had 
never thought she could be so happy. He made her 


MADEMOISELLE NARSAC. 1 69 

promise to keep the engagement secret, and she would 
sooner have died than disobeyed him. 

Well, for one mohth O’Brien gave himself up to all 
the pleasure he could get out of the love of such a girl ; 
then he went back to England, swearing to the last to 
come back, and to be faithful, and to write to her daily, 
vowing all the oaths in which lovers delight. 

For one whole day after O’Brien had gone Made- 
moiselle Narsac lay on her bed in a tearless agony. She 
lived over and over again every word, every look, he had 
given her; she murmured his name over and over to her- 
self lovingly; she felt as if life were one great, dreary 
blank. 

Those terrible days when her grandmother had died, all 
the sadness of leaving the dear old Jura village, were as 
nothing compared v/ith what she now felt. 

Now, the sadest of it all is that no one knew she was 
secretly engaged to O’Brien. People thought she was 
most shameful, and made a great many unkind remarks 
about her. 

He had no sooner unclasped her, half-fainting, from his 
neck and left her, than he ceased to think of her at all; 
he never intended to come back or write to her or keep 
one of the many promises he had made her. 

She waited long and despairingly for news from him, 
and at last it was rumored in the colony that he had 
married a girl at Home. 

For a moment, when the cruel words were told her (it 
was in public and there were many to notice the effect), 
it seemed as if her heart had stopped beating and she 
panted for breath; everything swam hazily before her 
eyes; her brain seemed as if it could not bear the pres- 
sure of that thought. 


170 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Wearily and painfully, as if great weights were tied to 
her feet, she climbed to her room on the top floor of the 
Princess Victoria School for Young Ladies with its wide 
view of the highly-cultivated hills and the teeming 
harbor. 

She sank in a chair by the open window, but the balmy 
breeze from the bay where the sun was dying gloriously 
did not refresh her; she was dead to everything but one 
thought. 

With her writing tablet on her lap she wrote to 
O’Brien, and when she had finished, her heart was laid 
bare to him in those pages. 

The effort exhausted her. Somehow she had dis- 
covered his address and mailed the letter herself, and 
lived for the next few weeks on the rack. Would he deny 
he was married? Would he send for her? Would he 
tell her he still loved her? These thoughts and dark 
misgivings haunted her day and night, and kept her in a 
fever of excitement. 

She had implored him to send her just a word to 
end her torture; in all honor he could not refuse her 
that. 

But O’Brien never wrote to her. She has realized at 
last that he is perfectly false; but she does not blame 
him; she thinks there was something in herself, though 
she doesn’t know what, that caused him to treat her as he 
has. 

No one in the colony pities her, for no one understands 
her, and every one thinks it very immodest of her to let 
the world see that she feels so badly about a man who 
never gave her any encouragement. 

She has not broken down, but she looks more fragile 
than ever, and her heart, which was always weak, pains 


MADEMOISELLE NARSAC. 


I7I 


her a great deal at times. She is sadder, too, and doesn’t 
laugh and talk any more in the old merry way. 

The wicked fairy’s frown is taking effect at last. Her 
heart is slowly breaking. Her people don’t wish her to 
return to Paris, and it is killing her to remain in the 
colony. 

Rokeby desires more than ever to marry her, but she 
tells him she can never love again; and he understands 
and longs to take her in his arms and comfort her. 

His commission will soon expire and he will go Home, 
and unless she changes her mind, she will lose him 
altogether and thereby her last and only chance of being 
happy. 

O’Brien has married and got a good place at Home, 
and his wife is devoted to him, — clearly this is a case 
of the world’s injustice. 

It is one of those riddles of Fate that O’Brien should 
go free, while poor little Mademoiselle Narsac, whose 
peace he has destroyed and whose life he has ruined, 
remains to suffer, unable to use the balm of Rokeby’ s 
really noble devotion, which, when she would fain have 
it, will probably be beyond her reach. 


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THE DESPAIR OF DAAGA. 


“ Now, hate rules a heart which iu love’s easy chains 
Once passion’s tumultuous blandishments knew, 
Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins, 
lie ponders in frenzy on Love’s last adieu.” 

H ours of I dletiess : Byron. 





THE DESPAIR OF DAAGA. 


Of all the chieftains on the ill-omened Guinea littoral 
none carried a prouder head, none bore a more terrific 
name, than Daaga, the Paupau chief. 

Six feet six inches he stood in swarthy nakedness, 
fierce, athletic, a veritable rex, or strong man ; it is no 
wonder that he was chosen by acclaim to succeed old 
Madershee. His Herculean frame, falcon eye, and voice 
like to the blast of a brazen trumpet, were for years 
known to the Portuguese, and as much a terror to them as 
to his race’s old enemy and rival, the Yarrabas. 

His name had rung along that Guinea coast with terror- 
laden emphasis ; he had tramped over its golden sands, 
and lain in its pestilent fens, everywhere receiving the 
homage due a great chief. 

He dreamed of a Paupau Empire where he should be 
absolute from the mighty ocean to the mythical lakes and 
mountains he had heard of as lying far, far away beyond 
his acres of wind-swept guinea-grass. 

The mighty Mawee alone disputed this haughty chief- 
tain, and while Daaga was lord of all the Guinea tribes, 
the Yarrabas alone, after many defeats, defied him. • 

Despite his haughty, passionate bearing, Daaga bore in 
his breast a heart as capable of deep emotion as that of 
any European. 


175 


176 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


It is perhaps a law of humanity that fierce and passion- 
ate natures, in their recoil, touch a depth of love and soft- 
ness totally unsuspected. 

Daaga loved Papotu. 

Papotu was a Guinea woman of a tribe he had defeated, 
and, from an African point of view, comely. Daaga held 
her as the apple of his eye. She was his only wife, proof 
conclusive in an African of excessive devotion. He lav- 
ished on her the best of all the tribute paid him, and told 
her when he had defeated the Yarrabas, he would bring 
Mawee’s head to her, this trophy being, in his estimation, 
the most valuable gift in the world. 

All this was very sweet to Papotu; it flattered her and 
made her important ; but she scarcely realized what such a 
passion as his meant, and her love for him had more of the 
savage in it. 

It was more of admiration for the grand physique of the 
man than the purer worship of Daaga. She loved him; 
but it was much as many an Englishwoman loves her hus- 
band, in a matter-of-fact way, properly and becomingly as 
a wife should. All passion in a savage is without restraint ; 
it devours his very soul while it lasts, and he becomes, for 
the time being, the very personification of his passion. 
He feels the passion, whether love or hate, anomalous as 
it may seem, quite as intensely as his brother, the “heir 
of all the ages.” 

The love of such a man as Daaga has something terrible 
in it. It was his whole existence. Without Papotu life 
would have had no charm ; he would have lain down in the 
long guinea-grass and died ; Mawee and his fierce Yarrabas 
might have trampled over his fair Paupau-land, which had 
cost him so much blood and fighting, and he would not 
have resisted. For what good would it be to throw back 


THE DESPAIR OF DA AG A. 


177 


that handsome, crested head of his and raise his lion-roar ? 
Victory and all the savage revelry he loved would have no 
zest for him were Papotu dead. 

This frenzy was intensified by thinking that Papotu 
loved in the same way. 

Do women know all their power, I wonder.? I have 
seen some play with a great love, and torture it, and, be- 
cause it made no outcry, feel that they were mistress of 
the man’s very soul. And the irony of it is that it is these 
women, these vain feather-brains, fond of a show of power 
and admiration, who excite mighty love, and receive, as it 
were, the life-blood of a true man. 

Papotu was one of these : she was so accustomed to 
Daaga’s passion that she considered it her due, and 
believed, as Daaga continually told her, that she was 
more beautiful than the setting sun, sweeter than when 
the land-breeze blows over the feathery guinea-grass, and 
more entrancing tlian all the Paupau women Holloloo 
sends to meet a great chief when he enters the poppy- 
fields of Death. 

One day news was brought to Daaga that the fierce 
Mawee had devastated a Paupau village that lay on his 
frontier, and carried off the inhabitants. 

Fired by the information, and his whole passionate, 
ambitious nature swept with the savage love of plunder 
which proud, victorious African chiefs feel, Daaga girt 
himself for war. 

Bidding Papotu farewell with a tenderness marvellous 
as contrasted with his savage desire to exterminate the 
Yarraba chief, he departed. 

Now, the Portuguese were in the habit of trading with 
Daaga. He sold them many slaves, and had long been 
very friendly with them. 


1/8 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Once, while strolling with her women on the beach, 
Papotu had noticed the looks of admiration cast upon her 
by a trader-captain. He gave her many a cheap present, 
which to her unsophisticated taste was of far more value 
than Daaga’s war-spoils, and had honored her in a more 
delicate and subtle manner than lay in the power of an 
uncivilized African. 

Flattered by this novel attention, her silly brain counted 
as nothing the great love of Daaga, and she continually 
planned how she might win the unspeakable riches of the 
trader-captain’s heart. 

Daaga fighting the Yarrabas gave her an opportunity, 
and she yielded willingly to the proposals of the Portu- 
guese, who admired the lovely curves of her graceful form, 
rather than the woman herself. 

Daaga engaged the Yarrabas in battle, captured Mawee, 
and levied tribute on his tribe. At last the mighty empire 
he dreamed of for Papotu was becoming a reality. Abso- 
lute lord of Guinea, full of fierce, exulting joy, he returned 
in triumph to his country, sending forward messengers to 
announce to Papotu his coming and his victory. 

Then a great fear fell on the weak and guilty woman, 
and she consulted with her paramour. He, with his 
Portuguese eye for cunning and deceit, proposed to lay 
an ambush for Daaga, sell him into slavery, and reign in 
Paupau with Papotu ever after. 

Papotu, terrified at the mere thought of Daaga, assented 
to everything. She rushed out to meet her returning lord 
with feigned love and joy. He showed her Mawee, and 
promised her his head and a splendid torture of the 
Yarraba chief. 

The trader-captain proposed to buy his captives, and 
made a great banquet on his ship for Daaga and his 


THE DESPAIR OF DA AG A. 


179 


Paupau warriors. It is an old story ; the annals of Guinea 
are full of such. The unsuspecting men were bound and 
chained along with their Yarraba captives. 

The trader-captain and his men seized Papotu and her 
women and, with an eye to future business, the mighty, 
athletic Mawee, who lay bound in Daaga’s hut. 

Much gold and ivory they gathered, and with the 
plunder of a race they sailed away, doubtless with visions 
of flaunting their wealth in the face of Lisbon. 

Of all in that slave-ship the only one whose feelings ' 
were worthy of note was Daaga. 

He saw his victory turn suddenly into defeat; he saw 
his empire with its dream of conquest to the lakes fade 
into the myths that girt those very lakes. He felt him- 
self, Daaga, the all-powerful Guinea chief, bound a slave 
along with slaves, and, bitterest of all, he saw Papotu faith- 
less and with love-looks for the trader-captain such as 
she had never given him. 

His savage brain was stunned ; his thoughts were con- 
fused; he labored with difflculty to concentrate his mind, 
and comprehend what had happened ; it seemed impossible 
that he, Daaga, always prosperous, should at last meet 
with misfortune, and such a misfortune ! pshaw ! it was a 
hideous fever of the brain, which Holloloo would soon 
dissipate, and he would laugh bitterly and wearily. 

But in time he realized it all, — realized that his mighty 
passion that had seemed to devour him, that was meat 
and drink to him, had been poured out on worthlessness. 

Guinea held not a woman that would not have been 
proud to be loved by him ; and here was Papotu, on whom 
the magnetism of such a name and love as his had no 
effect, torturing him with her scorn and the exquisite 
curves of her form. 


GOSSIP OF THE CAPIBPKES. 


I So 

Even while she betrayed him, he was unable to hate her. 
Ah, the madness of that thought! He who would have 
had the courage to battle with Holloloo longed to hate 
her and forget her, and he could not. 

The haughty spirit of the man, the gigantic frame, were 
debased and polluted, and he writhed in his chains in un- 
availing fury. 

Hatred so intense that it was devilish seized him, and 
he vowed he would eat the first white man he killed. 

Savage that he was. Love had tamed him and held him 
in soft, silken chains, but now deserting him, he fell into 
barbaric despair. 

One day he saw Papotu leaning on the breast of the 
trader-captain. The sight made him insane, and with super- 
natural strength the giant burst his chains and rushed 
upon them. 

He literally rent the puny Portuguese trader-captain 
limb from limb, tearing him with hands and teeth, and 
pitched the fragments into the sea. 

Papotu, all her fear suddenly revived, lay transfixed 
before him with no power to move. Daaga looked at her, 
and a great sadness fell upon him ; then, as if fearing that 
her loveliness would unman him, he raised his trumpet-like 
voice in a shriek of agony and, seizing her fainting form, 
Daaga strangled her. 

In the very act he was bound and thrown back among 
his amazed people. But henceforth his mind was easier, 
for he had tasted the sweetness of vengeance. 

The Portuguese did not kill him, for their mean, calcu- 
lating natures saw in him so many golden doubloons. 

Daaga now began to plan mutiny among the bound 
Africans, and promised, if they would follow him, to lead 
them when once on shore back to Guinea ! 


THE DESPAIR OF DA AG A, 


l8l 


England had just forbidden the importation of slaves 
into her colonies, and her ships of war were scouring the 
seas for slave-ships. One of these fell in with this hide- 
ously freighted trader and took off her human cargo, car- 
rying Daaga and his Paupau and Yarraba brethren to 
Trinidad. 

They were given their freedom, but made to enlist in the 
West Indian regiments. 

Now, on the face of it such freedom was a farce, and 
naturally these Africans could not comprehend it. 

They looked upon our race as only more successful 
than the Portuguese and their brilliant uniforms as badges 
of slavery. 

Civilized Englishmen have little conception of the fierce 
pride of the African and how he feels the abasement of 
being in the power of a white man. It is a marked char- 
acteristic of the race, and in the days when our West 
Indian ports held their Guinea traders, it was a well-known 
fact that the imported generation never got over their 
hatred of us and their sense of pollution and degradation. 
It is said, the more civilized a race, the more sensitive it 
is ; but the peoples of Europe could not feel more deeply 
or everlastingly the insult of slavery than did the untamed 
denizens of Africa when Europe’s slave-ships blackened 
Guinea with terror and despair. 

Daaga was looked upon by his followers as their natural 
leader, and he ever held before them the pathetic hope 
that he would lead them back to Guinea. 

He was the enfant perdu of the colony, and there was 
nothing left for him but to dare. 

What an irony life was to such a man ! Everything had 
turned to ashes on his lips, and now, struggling against 
fate, he would go back to Guinea, a country more torn 


82 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


with internecine strife, since the power of his name had 
been dissipated, than when the rex, the strong-man, had 
received dominion from old Madershee. 

It was Hercules wrestling with the Nessus-shirt ; life 
could never hold anything but blind, passionate hatred and 
despair for him. 

Trinidad has long since been deprived of troops, but in 
those days the St. James barracks at Port of Spain held 
a large force of white soldiers, and the West India bat- 
talion w'as stationed at St. Joseph under the command of 
Colonel Bush. 

Colonel Bush was humane and an able officer for a Home 
regiment, but utterly inexperienced as to the treatment 
of wild Africans impressed into His Majesty’s service. 

He made the great mistake of treating such desperate 
men as Daaga and Mawee as if they had been English 
soldiers and imbued with deep reverence for the royal 
ensign that floated everywhere. The result was that 
Daaga imposed on the Colonel with all the cunning of his 
nature. 

Now, the following part of the story I have from a very 
ancient woman, who was one of Papotu’s court-ladies, and 
who declared she was an eye-witness of all the events 
related in this story. 

One of the lieutenants had a young wife. St. Joseph was 
her first colonial station. She was the only white woman 
on the station, and used to be much alone. She was one 
of those people who interest themselves deeply in their 
surroundings, and she would sit in her bamboo-chair and 
gaze in wonder on the mountains around the peaceful 
valley, — mountains soaring passionately into the sky and 
ever changing from deepest purple to vivid green, as if in 
agony to be free. 


THE DESPAIR OF DA AG A. 


183 


Daaga was orderly to the lieutenant. His wife delighted 
to talk to him, and had a great part of his history from 
him, showing him her sympathy in various ways, her ser- 
vice being so gentle that even his defiant spirit felt no 
compunction in doing her bidding. 

From first to last Daaga received nothing but kindness 
from her, and his subsequent actions can only be accounted 
for on the plea of savagery. Before she had come to the 
station Daaga had planned a mutiny, and it was on the 
eve of being executed, when Colonel Bush sent to St. 
Vincent half of the Paupaus and Yarrabas, and in their 
place came Africans who belonged to other tribes and had 
been long settled in the colonies. 

Daaga began all over again his insidious teaching, and 
at last prevailed upon the whole garrison to revolt. This 
roi efi exil considered all the white officers his equals, 
and he hated them, one and all, for enslaving him. Pie 
made no distinction, and, in fact, his hatred extended to 
the entire white race. He studied how in his hour of 
triumph he should best wreak his vengeance, and he 
found the way. 

On the night of the mutiny Colonel Bush and his offi- 
cers lay asleep in their quarters when they were suddenly 
aroused by the irregular discharge of fire-arms. Daaga 
killed the sentry, and, at the head of the entire garrison, 
made a rush for the barrack-room and seized the weapons 
in the racks. Daaga and his followers barely understood 
the use of arms, and this accounts for the little harm they 
did. However, they drove the officers from their quarters, 
and prepared to set out through the great primeval forest 
to go back to Guinea ! 

The lieutenant’s wife recognized Daaga as the leader, 
and thought by her influence with him she could persuade 


184 


GOSS IP OF THE CAKIBBEES. 


liim to lay down his arms and calm the revolt. Against 
the wishes of all the officers she insisted, and bravely ran 
up to Daaga, in her purity and girlish beauty, like a dove 
lost on a midnight sea. 

Muskets were levelled at her, but Daaga ordered his 
men not to fire. Seizing her with his face marked by 
every vicious passion that ever dominated a man, Daaga 
carried her to the barrack-room and defiled her. Her 
shrieks were deadened in the fury of the men, who were 
all the while chanting a Paupau war-song, which sounded 
like the low, weird growl of wolves. 

After wreaking this horrid vengeance, holding the faint- 
ing woman in his arms, Daaga prepared to strangle her as 
he had done Papotu. 

Maybe the purity, the beauty, the kindly affection 
which she alone of all her race had ever shown him, 
checked him, for with his iron fingers around her fair 
throat he stopped. 

She opened her eyes, and for an instant, not realizing 
what had happened and hearing the hoarse wolf-notes of 
the Paupau war-song and the noise of battle, intensified 
by the blackness of the night, with the mighty, silent 
mountains like evil spirits looking on, she cried, — 

“ Daaga, ah, Daaga, save me ! ” 

The utter helplessness and entreaty of her voice, the 
confidence in him, tamed the savage in him, and, push- 
ing her from him, he said, — 

“ Go, or I kill you ! What I have done is sufficient. 1 
thirst for the blood of your race. Go, go, or I kill you ! ” 

The lieutenant’s wife in one fell moment realized every- 
thing, and she fled, shrieking. 

Her husband had been ordered to make the best of his 
way to Port of Spain and arouse the St. James garrison. 


THE DESEA /E OF DA AG A. 1 85 

He did his duty bravely, not knowing what the fate of his 
wife would be. 

When at last he returned with the white regiment he 
found his girl-wife stretched as if in death at the foot of 
the silk-cotton tree behind the barrack-room, and, from 
loss of blood and excitement, he fell fainting beside her. 

Daaga, Danton of this revolt that he was, fought with 
despair ; his men, who did not understand the use of fire- 
arms, were scattered by the officers, who had finally rallied 
and awaited the coming of the white troops. 

Mawee and his Yarrabas, thinking that Guinea lay over 
the mountains, fled to the forest, all of them, but Mawee 
who was taken alive, to be lost or shot down by the 89th 
foot. 

Daaga, in his despair, himself not understanding the use 
of his gun, fought desperately, but was finally overpowered 
and bound. 

He knew what it meant, what the end was, only he 
looked forward to the torture of an African death, such as 
he was but too familiar with in his bloody contests. 

But he and Mawee, the leaders, underwent a regular 
court-martial, and his astonishment was intense when he 
was told that his death would be instant and without tor- 
ture. His Paupau people testified against him and scorned 
him ; he was reviled by them all ; but as he stood there, a 
superb specimen of manly beauty, he quailed not. 

From head to foot his whole being expressed an intense 
despair that, despite the horror felt for the man, was sad to 
contemplate. Beneath the savage lay the man, a man 
capable of great possibilities. The treachery of his wife, 
the farcical freedom of the English, all surged through 
his brain. Savagery as well as civilization has its problems 
of life as difficult to solve. 


1 86 GOSS/F OF THE CARIBBEES. 

To Daaga the solution of the great riddle was despair. 

The day following the mutiny Daaga and Mawee were 
lead out to the barrack-yard to be shot. 

Daaga looked like a demi-god about to be sacrificed. 
Even Mawee looked at him in awe ; his lithe form was 
stretched to its utmost height, and his fierce, handsome 
eyes glowed with the haughtiest pride as they fell on the 
white soldiers. 

The Provost-marshal felt as if he were executing a 
monarch, not a savage. 

With our English sense of propriety and ill-advised offi- 
ciousness, these men were offered spiritual comfort by a 
chaplain ! Daaga, if he understood, paid no heed. Had 
he been given his freedom and put back in Guinea, I 
doubt if he would have been happier. Life was one hideous 
nightmare to him. All desire of sway, all pride of conquest 
had died in him when Papotu betrayed him. Plis one 
dominant idea all through was that Papotu, upon whom 
such a wealth of love had been lavished, had proved 
utterly unworthy of it. His despair was that once having 
given out from himself such a love, so rare, so ideal, he 
was powerless to call it back ; and even while his fingers 
choked the throat his lips had burned with kisses, even 
then he had loved her. Pride and despair battled in him 
to the last. 

When the executioner attempted to put over his face 
the night-cap, Daaga passionately shoved his up with his 
arm, and his metallic, trumpet-voice was heard saying, — 

“ The curse of Holloloo on white men ! Do they think 
that Daaga fears to fix his eye-balls on death ? ” • 

Then, with an intense sadness in his eyes, he looked 
beyond the purple mountains, bathed in a golden radiance 
of sunlight, where, as he thought, Guinea lay with the soft 
breeze sighing through the tall, feathery grass. 


THE DESPAIR OF DA AG A. 1 87 

At the first whiz of the bullets he sank. To such a 
man death was a relief. 

After all our boasted progress and the heirship of the 
ages, the great drama of life remains the same to both 
savage and European. 

He acts his role somewhat in the serious Shakespearian 
style, while we act ours after the more or less flippant 
manner of the new philosophy. 

The great tragedy appals and eats into the very fibre 
of the savage, and drives him mad or slays him. We in 
the fifth act have our little weep and stagger to a fall ; but 
the curtain rings down with the tableau of Time pouring 
his soothing balm on despair. 

Our version is undoubtedly the happiest, but is it the 
truest ? 










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COLONIAL AMENITIES. 


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COLONIAL AMENITIES. 


The famous women of History remained famous long 
after youth had faded. Cleopatra’s girlhood had faded 
when her charm was most potent. Penelope was still 
attractive when Ulysses returned after weary years of 
absence. Marie Stuart in imprisonment still held the 
secret of fascination when her youth was long dead. 
And Lady Claude Vernon, pitted with the small-pox and 
a grandmother, was still the central figure round which 
society gathejed. She was a power in the land, and, when 
Lady Marker ruled at Government House, led the crusade 
against her and defied her. She was the first to refuse to 
stand in her ladyship’s presence ; and the many other 
deeds she achieved, to the humiliation of Government 
House, in Lady Marker’s day, were so many links in the 
chain with which she had bound the entire colony to her 
leadership. 

She had been at the head of everything for thirty years 
or more ; and now, on the shady side of sixty, still clinging 
jealously to her power, she- was more than a match for 
many a clever and younger woman. 

Everybody thought they knew her history ; but Lady 
Claude was too shrewd a woman ever to allow much of 
her life, before she came to the colony, to be known. 

In spite of the small-pox, she had been thrice married. 

191 


92 


GOSS/P OF THE 'CAKIBBEES. 


And what report said of these marriages was considered 
correct. 

Her first venture could hardly be called happy. Ranger 
was a Captain in the 2d West, and when in his cups, which 
was quite a chronic state with him, was knocked down by 
a sugar-dray and killed, leaving his widow with an infant 
to gain a pittance by teaching a “ nigger-school.” This 
infant years after became famous as flora Ranger, or the 
“ Immense,” a worthy daughter of her mother, and subse- 
quently married to a rich Italian. 

Lady Claude always spoke of her marriage with “ poor 
Ranger ” as one of love ! Ranger must have beaten that 
tender sentiment out of her at an early date, for the grass 
was scarce green on his grave when she became Mrs. 
Drake. She made no pretence of ever having married the 
battered old Major save for his money ; and as he died a 
year later, apparently from the shock of being made the 
father of twins in his old age, she benefited .decidedly by 
the alliance. 

Her last marriage was to consolidate her position, she 
said, in which she has been eminently successful, as we 
all see. 

Lord Claude was an old fogy of an Inspector of Schools. 
He was the tenth son of an impoverished peer, who had 
been only too glad to get him his present situation and 
forget him. And completely forgotten he was by all his 
relatives, whom Lady Claude was sensible enough never 
to mention, relying upon her own intelligence for her suc- 
cess. 

She was just the sort of woman to captivate the stolid, 
dull imagination of such a man as Lord Claude. 

All these events happened long before the memory of 
the present generation. In those days she was known as 


COLONIAL AMENITIES. 


193 


a wit and a beauty, in spite of the small-pox, wherever the 
British flag floated in the West Indies. As she grew 
older her grip on society became stronger. Though society 
muttered, she maintained her censorship by lavish hospi- 
tality joined with fear, — fear of her caustic, unsparing 
tongue. She never forgave a slight. Her friendship was 
far preferable to her enmity, for her enmity was social 
death. 

The anecdotes about her would fill volumes. In every 
question that has agitated society for the last thirty years 
Lady Claude Vernon has sooner or later had a part. 

When Father O’Mara broke off the engagement between 
Miss Connor and Belton, Lady Claude, who was a friend 
of Belton’s, championed him through the campaign, and 
said some very unpleasant things about Miss Connor, 
until finally the excitement of the subject was quenched 
in the still more exciting one of the quarrel between 
Lady Claude Vernon and Father O’Mara which sprung 
out of it. 

She it was who refused to admit the Maddens to the 
best set in the colony and called them vulgar and nouveau 
ricke^ although Miss Madden had been educated at Paris 
and was sweetly pretty. 

She gave a helping hand to the Bunces, who had made 
their money out of manures, and got them invitations to 
the best houses. But then the Bunces had young men 
in the family who were eligible, and Lady Claude had 
daughters to marry. It seemed as if she were always 
marrying her daughters, for somehow it was so difficult to 
bring a grand parti to the mark and keep him there. 

What a surprise it was to the colony when she caught 
the rich Italian for Flora the Immense, the child of the 
love marriage ! What a surprise it was when Flora left 


194 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


him in Trinidad and came back to her mother unexpectedly 
with the words, — 

“ Mother, this is your doing ! ” an episode considered 
so important by the servants, that for weeks after Flora 
had gone back to Trinidad and the uncertain temper of 
her husband, mothers gathered at tea-parties would ex- 
claim in righteous indignation that they would not sell their 
daughters to rich husbands, even if they could love like an 
/-talian ! for servants gossip, especially the black ones, 
peeping through keyholes and listening behind doors. 

She was so very clever that people dared not offend her, 
not knowing how her cleverness would be used against 
them. Even the old Canon was afraid of her. But over 
him she exercised a wholesome fear, which was a decided 
benefit to the congregation at St. Dunstan’s. Her seat 
was under the pulpit, and when the old Canon would be- 
come unusually tedious and unable to make out his own 
writing on the MS. before him, she would shake her fin- 
ger at him as a sign to stop. 

The Very Reverend gentleman always obeyed that fin- 
ger when he saw it raised, and would come to an abrupt 
end. 

In all this, of course, she had many enemies ; but few sel- 
dom antagonized her, save the Clan Heriot ; and in that 
fell contest she was nigh exterminated, issuing from the 
war bleeding from many a wound and painful scar. But 
she survived, and once more shone in the upper firmanent 
of the Government House set as great a luminary as of 
old. 

She is always skirmishing, and lately, while reconnoitring 
she was exposed to some very unexpected and sharp firing. 
It was the time of one of the Bachelor dances. The 
Bachelors had selected Mrs. Adene’s house, but had the 


COLO AVAL AMENITIES. 


19s 


greatest difficulty to get it, one of them almost having had 
to go down on his knees on ’Change to Mr. Adene before 
he could be persuaded to lend it. 

It got wind, as all such things do in a colonial garrison 
station, that the Bachelors wanted the Adenes’ house for 
their dance ; and on the night of the day that Adene had 
lent it, and was as eager as the Bachelors that the dance 
should be a success. Lady Claude Vernon heard it. It 
was at a dinner-party, and two of the Bachelors who 
assisted Lord Claude in the inspection of schools were 
present. 

Now, Lady Claude and Mrs. Adene did not speak. Mrs. 
Adene said afterward that she did not know the reason, 
but believed that her mother and Lady Claude had quar- 
relled before she was born ! During the dinner Lady 
Claude said to one of the sub-inspectors, — 

“ I hear you have got Mrs. Adene’s house for your 
dance. A delightful place. My daughters and I, though, 
will have to forego the pleasure. We don’t speak to the 
Adenes, you know.” 

Then she rambled off on to another subject, and left her 
words to rankle in the sub-inspector’s brain to work mis- 
chief, — either to breakup the dance, or to insult Mrs. 
Adene by giving it at some other place. 

When Lady Claude resolved to gain an end, she was 
not particular as to the means. She determined to pay 
off old scores on Mrs. Adene and throw the odium of the 
whole affair on the Bachelors. It was clever but unscru- 
pulous. 

Now, the morning after the dinner-party the Bachelors’ 
Secretary received notes from the sub-inspectors to the 
effect that they would be unable to subscribe if the dance 
were at Mrs. Adene’s, as the Vernons had quarrelled with 


96 


GOSSIP OF THE CAP IB BEES. 


the Adenes, and couldn’t go, and, besides, being constantly 
with Lord Claude, he might feel hurt. 

Later in the day came further secessions. The boy 
that Lady Claude had so cleverly hooked in the face of the 
whole colony for her youngest daughter made his future 
mother-in-law’s quarrel his own. Others also who were 
indebted to Lady Claude for invitations to dinners, dances, 
garden-parties, and the greater part of their amusements, 
made excuses about subscribing. With a vision of all 
these pleasures at an end, they preferred no dance rather 
than offend her. Altogether more than half the Bachelors 
stampeded, and, to make matters worse, the Secretary in 
despair went to Mrs. Adene. He poured into her ears 
the woes of a man on a dance committee, and would she 
feel the very slightest bit hurt if the Bachelors got another 
house for their dance ? 

This was very bad. But Mrs. Adene was charming over 
it ; and though the remnant of the Bachelors took up the 
cudgels in her defence and refused to subscribe if Lady 
Claude Vernon were invited to the dance, yet she pro- 
tested that she was not offended, and said publicly that 
she would like to go up to Lady Claude and congratulate 
her on her cleverness and the ability with which she man- 
aged society. For the dance fell through. Lady Claude 
had gained her end. 

But society ridiculed the Bachelors and muttered omi- 
nously against Lady Claude, though, as she said, it was 
absurd to mention her name in connection with the affair 
at all. Because she and Mrs. Adene did not speak it was 
no reason why the dance should not have been at her 
house. She also said that if the Bachelors had treated 
her so insultingly, they would have suffered for it, which 
was quite true. But the amusing part of the whole affair 


COLONIAL AMENITIES. 


197 


was the way old Adene took it. He came from Sligo, and 
was a hot-tempered old chap, and very sensitive where his 
pride and his wife were concerned. 

Lord Claude Vernon, as dull as he was stupid, was in 
the habit of going to the Club in the afternoons and hav- 
ing his game of whist. He rarely went anywhere besides 
the Club, and was quite ignorant of the scandal of the 
Bachelor dance. Adene burst into the card-room, furious, 
and said, — 

“ I wish an apology, sir, a public apology, sir, for the 
insoolt your wife has given to me own ! ” 

Lord Claude looked at him with speechless amazement 
in his dull eyes, and thought Adene had gone mad. 

“ It is all a piece of damned spite, sir. Your wife has 
never forgiven me for not marryin’ the Imminse Ranger. 
She brings her to me house on the play of askin’ for a soob- 
scription to the Infirmary, and gets ten pounds out of me, 
and goes all over me house, and says she, ‘ Flora, me dear, 
phat a bootiful room this is,’ meanin’ me bedroom; ‘if 
you ever have one like this, I shall indade envy you. Ah, 
ye wicked man, ye should get married. Such a splendid 
house wants a mistress,’ and she ogles me and the Imminse, 
and with a laugh like a hyena she rushes out of the room 
and leaves us togither. And for me life I couldn’t shpeak 
a word to the Imminse, and she begins, — 

‘ Ah, Mr. Adene, I am afraid Mamma was right. Is it so 
that ye are very wicked } Oh, Mr. Adene, indade this is 
very awkard alone with ye in a bedroom ! Oh, I shall faint, 
I know I shall ! ’ And she buries her face in her hands, 
and I stand by like a fool, but wise enough to see the little 
game, and I summoned up courage and stuck a bottle of 
ammonia, thinkin’ it was cologne, under her nose, and the 
Imminse gives a scream, fit to take off the roof. Then 


98 


GOSSIP OF THE CAR/BBEES. 


her Mamma rushes in and says, says she, ‘ Phat are ye 
doin’ to me child ? Oh, Mr. Adene, if the servants should 
know this, there would be a scandal.’ And with that she 
calls frantically, ‘Help!’ and, begad, I thought it was a 
put-up job to wring money out of me, I did, and I says, 

‘ Here’s ten pounds, madam, for your Infirmary, and plase 
to leave me. I am unnerved that I am, for I am a paceful 
man and not accustomed to faintin’ and screamin’ ladies 
in me house.’ And I got them into the kerridge, and the 
Imminse looks at me and says, ‘ I don’t think I can ever 
look at ye again, Mr. Adene. It was so very awkard.” 
And her Mamma shakes her head at me and says, ‘You 
must not mind phat she says, Mr. Adene, she’s very bashful. 
I shall make you give us a dance in this fine house yet.’ 
And they drove away, and I thought, ‘ Ah, Miss Imminse, 
may I never see your imminse face and form again or your 
Mamma’s. Aye, but ye’re two schamin’ women, ye are, and 
I am afraid of ye, that I am ! ’ And I gave the butler 
orders to say I was not at home if they ever called again. 
And now, sir,” to the stupefied Lord Claude, ‘ to spite 
me, your wife throws a stigma on me own ! Thinks we are 
not good enough for her, does she ? Plase to tell her that 
me uncle Terence Adene is god-father to Lord O’Hooley’s 
grandson, and that me own mother was a Fitzjurld. But, 
begad, sir, ye must apologize, sir. I will not take an 
insooltfrom me Lady Claude Vernon, or anybody else. Do 
ye hear, sir ? ” 

Lord Claude seemed to be going into a state of coma, 
and was incapable of answering or fixing his mind on the 
infuriate Adene. The helpless, dumbfounded expression 
of the school-inspector only made Adene the more enraged, 
and, stamping, he said with tears in his eyes, — 

Phat satisfaction can ye get out of that drivellin’ idiot ? 


COL ONI A L A MEN I TIES. 


199 


Begad, ye’re a puppet between the Imminse and the wife, 
and with their screamin’ and faintin’ and scandal they’ve 
driven the little sinse out of your brain, that they have ! ” 

Some one got Adene away, and eventually Lord Claude 
recovered sufficiently to call a cab, and he never came back 
to the Club for a very long time. 

Of course, this was spread at once throughout the col- 
ony ; and though Lady Claude had been victorious in the 
Bachelor dance affair, yet Adene’s explosion in the Club, 
exposing, as it did, her endeavor to catch him for the 
Immense Ranger, was a species of ridicule quite unpleas- 
ant to bear. To my mind, old Adene gave her as good as 
she gave. 




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THE BEST OF FRIENDS FALL OUT SOME- 
TIMES. 


“ It is our own vanity that makes the vanity of others intolerable.” 

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THE BEST OF FRIENDS FALL OUT SOME- 
TIMES. 


As the years rolled away the colony grew to look upon 
Mrs. Clarendon as an institution, or a fixture at least. 
She was always talking of settling in the South of France ; 
but the force of gravity or of circumstances was more 
powerful than the attraction of Provence, and she contin- 
ued to move in her old orbit. 

When the captain died we all supposed she would sell 
out and consummate her desire ; but she did nothing of the 
kind. On the contrary, Mango Lodge got a new coat of 
paint, which it sadly needed, and the scrubby mango-trees 
in the rear were cut down. The house was renovated 
throughout, and she and “ Mamma ” settled down in com- 
fort to mourn the excellent captain. 

“ Mamma,” always delightful, finally shrivelled up from 
extreme age, like a rose when the fragrance and falling 
petals suggest death, and Mrs. Clarendon was left alone. 

Surely, then, she would seek an abode in the South of 
France, as she always said ; but no, she remained in the 
colony and invited Miss Doyle to live with her. 

Miss Doyle was a maiden lady of advanced years, and 
in her way was quite as sui generis as Mrs. Clarendon. 
She belonged to an excellent family, and at one time was 
well off ; but a rascally nephew got hold of some of her 
money and sunk it in Trinidad in a sugar-estate. 


2C3 


204 


GOSS/F OF THE CARIBBEES. 


She was fearfully deaf, and her expressionless face was 
awfully meek and stupid. Every three years she would 
go to England for a few months and come back in the 
latest fashion, in which plenty of ribbons always figured. 

Mrs. Clarendon was very fond of her, and would dis- 
course to her deaf, unheeding ears by the hour on all the 
titled and swell people she had ever met and what they 
had said to her. 

These two ladies lived at Mango Lodge for years, and 
you rarely saw one without the other. Every one knew 
Mrs. Clarendon’s heavy, old fashioned, lumbering victoria, 
with the sleepy black coachman in musty livery, and the 
tired jog-trot of the chestnut horse that wagged his head 
from side to side as he moved, as if the motion gave him 
strength to pull the vehicle and its occupants. If you had 
not seen this institution, you had not seen the colony; for, 
as regular as clock-work, it was lumbering somewhere 
on the Hastings road between four and six every after- 
noon. 

Mrs. Clarendon had changed in many ways since she 
first came to the colony. She was as large, gross, and 
reminiscent as ever; but to liken her to the moon, in that 
she shone by means of the reflected light of her swell 
acquaintance, she was at this phase of her orbit past the 
full, and the telescopic gaze of society had long since 
exhausted its curiosity, and was now fixed upon newer 
planets. 

It was whispered that Mrs. Clarendon in her decline, to 
drown the thoughts of a luminous past eclipsed by a 
merciless present, was in the habit of “ tipping the elbow,” 
a practice said to have a narcotic and consoling effect. 
But as this was a bit of society gossip, I doubt whether 
there was any truth in it. 


THE BEST OF FRIENDS FALL OUT SOMETIMES. 20 $ 

No two people could have been better suited to each 
other. Mrs. Clarendon, fond of “bossing” and parade, 
took Miss Doyle into her house and patronized, snubbed, 
and ridiculed her to her heart’s content. 

Miss Doyle, silly, deaf old maid, was grateful to Mrs. 
Clarendon ; for through her she again got a glimpse of 
Gym-khanas and Polo and high life in general, of which 
she had been deprived for thirty years or more. 

Moreover, she looked on Mrs. Clarendon as a lady who 
had been very much injured, and whose acquaintance with 
the great ones of earth was practically unlimited — a per- 
son very much to be respected. 

She had been bred to consider officialdom as all-power- 
ful ; and Mrs. Clarendon, in her insane ravings over titles 
and position, had screamed into her deaf ears so much 
about the respect due this personage and that until Miss 
Doyle, clay ready for the hands of any potter, grew to look 
upon His Excellency as if he were sovereign of the whole 
Empire. 

Little did Mrs. Clarendon imagine that this sort of con- 
versation was the food that fattened the viper that stung 
her. The doctrine that respect is due to the mighty, 
which she and Nature had inculcated in Miss Doyle, was 
firmly rooted in her friend on the last night that Mrs. 
Clarendon ever dined at Government House. 

His Excellency had a little snarling brute of a woolly 
Skye, which he had taught to run from one end of a room 
and seize with his mouth anything placed on the head of 
a person at the other end. 

On this particular night, when Mrs. Clarendon and Miss 
Doyle were dining with him, he proposed to exhibit for 
his guests’ benefit this highly amusing accomplishment. A 
bit of bread was placed by his august hands on Miss 


206 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Doyle’s head, and she was led to one end of the room and 
left standing there with her back to the assembly, as if 
she were a naughty child, or another son waiting for a 
Tell to shoot the bread from her head. Dear Miss Doyle 
had not got into her deaf ears what it all meant, but 
thought it must be perfectly proper, as His Excellency 
sanctioned it. Suddenly a savage yelping and swift claw- 
ing of teet, and the Skye made a spring into the air and 
bore off triumphantly the bread and half of Miss Doyle’s 
wig, to the unbounded terror and amazement of that lady, 
which even fear of His Excellency could not conceal. 

For what reason no one knew, or has ever been able 
to find out, Mrs. Clarendon, in whose face the flush of 
champagne was vying with the rose tints of the rouge-pot, 
took it into her head to be highly exasperated with His 
Excellency. 

In a towering rage, muttering something about radical- 
ism sending parvenus to govern colonies, she snatched 
Miss Doyle’s wig from the sputtering mouth of the accom- 
plished Skye, and sought the unfortunate owner in the 
cloak-room, whither she had retired in confusion and tears. 

No manner of apology could soften Mrs. Clarendon, 
though His Excellency called in person several times, and 
the magic of whose presence completely restored Miss 
Doyle’s respect, if ever it had been lost. She could not 
understand what the Governor said, but surmised probably 
what he came for, and was pleased at such condescension 
on the part of an Excellency. 

The Viper, as Miss Doyle was afterwards spoken of 
by Mrs. Clarendon, under the generous nourishing hand 
of that lady, had now become fat and strong enough to 
wriggle about of herself, and she enjoyed the sensation. 

Mrs. Clarendon would at this juncture have limited the 


THE BEST OF FRIENDS FALL ODT SOME TIMES. 20 / 


extent of her favorite’s wriggles ; but, viper-like, it resented 
this, and finally, on the night of the Queen’s Birthday Ball, 
the Viper showed her fangs. The Governor had sent an 
invitation to Miss Doyle to the ball, and, furthermore, wrote 
her a pleasant little note, saying he would not feel himself 
forgiven for the accident of the dinner unless she would 
come. So many marked attentions from such a high 
quarter flattered Miss Doyle, and her meekness gave way 
to occasional reminiscences of her grandpapa, who had 
once been Chief-Justice of the colony. The portrait of 
this worthy dispenser of Majesty’s justice hung in the 
house,— the portrait of a bloated, red-nosed, irritable old 
man, the only acts of whom that had come down to pos- 
terity were that he beat his wife and was in a habitual 
state of inebriety. 

From occasional remarks about her grandpapa Miss 
Doyle began to talk of nothing else but — 

“ In Sir Timothy Doyle’s time, etc.,” “ When my grand- 
papa, the late Sir Timothy Doyle, was Chief-Justice, we 
kept open house. I remember what a shocking flirt Rear- 
Admiral Bowline was. He had the impudence once at 
my grandpapa’s house to kiss me,” etc. 

This new trait in her friend was not pleasing to Mrs. 
Clarendon, who liked to enjoy a monopoly of this style of 
conversation, and she seemed to resent that Miss Doyle 
had ever had a grandpapa. As she was not on speaking 
terms with Government House, she did not receive an in- 
vitation to the ball, and — 

“Of course,” she said to Miss Doyle, “you will not go. 
You surely cannot accept after what has happened.” 

“ But he has apologized so many times, dear ; and if I 
pay no attention to this last appeal, it will seem like spite 
on my part.” 


208 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


“ And have you no consideration for my feelings ? I 
have quarrelled with the insulting wretch, not on my own 
account, but on yours. You must not go ; you must back 
me up.” 

So long accustomed to legislate for Miss Doyle, Mrs. 
Clarendon never dreamed that she would dare do aught 
but obey ; and she was more than surprised on the night of 
the ball to see Miss Doyle appear before her with yellow, 
scrawny neck and arms showing above a much be-ribboned 
evening gown. 

Miss Doyle had a half-fearful, half-defiant smile on her 
otherwise expressionless face. 

“ I am going to’ the ball, dear,” she said. “ I owe it to 
Her Majesty as a loyal subject to go.” And she wriggled 
out of the room in a hurry to escape further explanation. 

IMrs. Clarendon did not take long to decide on her 
course of action. 

Vipers are dangerous things to have in one’s house. 

Mrs. Clarendon was convinced of this, and determined 
to at once rid Mango Lodge of all such treacherous 
vermin. 

Miss Doyle, unwitting of the storm brewing, went to the 
ball, and was graciously received by the Governor, who 
delegated the Private Secretary to take her to supper. 

She could not hear anything that he said to her, but 
rambled to the young man of the dances she had been to 
“ in Sir Timothy Doyle’s time, my grandpapa, you know, 
and what wretches the naval fellows were then,” till the 
unfortunate Secretary mentally cursed the late Sir Timothy 
Doyle for bequeathing a granddaughter to posterity to 
keep his memory green. 

The next morning, before Miss Doyle was awake, Mrs. 
Clarendon was engaged in exterminating the Viper she 
had nourished to sting her. 


THE BEST OF FRIENDS FALL OUT SOMETIMES. 209 


She departed to the Hastings Hotel, where she wrote 
the following note to Miss Doyle, which was a reveille 
summoning her from the pleasant table-lands of Sir Tim- 
othy Doyle memories and high official favor to the sterile 
plains of every-day life : — 


“ Hastings Hotel. 

“Mrs. Clarendon wishes to inform Miss Doyle that she will return 
to Mango Lodge when Miss Doyle shall have quitted it. She regrets 
having to write in this style to Miss Doyle ; but after the sacrifices she 
has made for her sake, which Miss Doyle so little appreciates that she 
sides with her own enemies against her friends, she is forced to write 
thus. Mrs. Clarendon has noticed for some time past a great change 
in tne hitherto agreeable qualities of Miss Doyle, with deep regret, — a 
change so annoying, while it is vulgar, that it has been with difficulty 
that she could endure it. Miss Doyle must know that no apology can 
atone for the last insult to Mrs. Clarendon, an insult which has wounded 
more, far more, than angered her. Mrs. Clarendon now bitterly re- 
grets that she was ever led, out of the kindness of her heart, to quarrel 
seriously with His Excellency on account of his treatment of Miss 
Doyle. But she has the meagre consolation of knowing that what she 
did she was bound in honor to do, as friend to friend. After Miss 
Doyle has reflected on her actions, she will see that the only thing to 
do will be for them to separate, and Mrs. Clarendon will be much ob- 
liged to Miss Doyle if she will vacate Mango Lodge as speedily as pos- 
sible. Mrs. Clarendon feels as if she had nourished a Viper, which 
had turned and stung her. No reply is necessary, nor will it be read 
if sent, but returned unopened.” 


Thus was Miss Doyle aroused from the dreams of her 
grandpapa and a life delightful even to her withered 
emotions. 

The poor thing burst into a torrent of tears, as she saw 
Government House, friendship of Mrs. Clarendon, and 
all it had brought her, fade into darkness. 


210 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


There was nothing for her to do but to go back to the 
old uneventful life in the country; and with heavy heart 
she packed up her belongings and quitted Mango Lodge 
forever. 

No one missed her, and in nine days after the surprise 
of the quarrel between Mrs. Clarendon and herself had 
worn away no one remembered her. 

Thus was the Viper exterminated, as all Vipers should 
be. But Mrs. Clarendon sought to keep alive the memory 
of her quondam friend. 

To any one who would listen she descanted on how 
deeply Miss Doyle drank, how she terribly swore at the 
servants, liow irritable she was, till there was no living 
with her finally, and how much she was injured and 
wounded in her heart. And there were people cruel 
enough not to believe her, and to accuse her of all the 
things of which she accused Miss Doyle. 

From all of which, reader, you will notice that the 
moon which, with so much promise of brilliancy, had 
approached its full was now in its last quarter, setting 
in gloom and clouds. 


IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


“Ay! be silent! Let them hear each other breathing 
For a moment, mouth to mouth ! ” 

The Cry of the Children: Mrs. Browning. 



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IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF 
DEATH. 


I BELIEVE it would be difficult to find a healthier 
climate than that of the Windward and Leeward Islands. 
Even Demerara, once a sink and sewer given up to dis- 
ease, is now comparatively healthy. But at rare inter- 
vals some terrible epidemic devastates these islands and 
leaves its blight behind for a time. For Nature repairs 
her ravages, and even the scars disappear eventually. 

Several years ago Barbados, the acknowledged sanita- 
rium of the entire West Indies and the adjacent conti- 
nent, after a remarkable exemption from every form of 
pestilence, was visited by the Dread Angel. He came 
silently, unexpectedly, and probably from that fever- 
hole, Santos. Shut him out as we would, he got in, and, 
like a vampire, sucked our life-blood for six weary 
months, and then, having exhausted us, fled to appease 
his terrible appetite in some other quarter. 

Yellow-fever was the mantle in which Death robed 
himself on this occasion. Now, we are so justly proud 
of the good reputation of Barbados, that if you, reader, 
should come here and die of yellow-fever, we would 
hush it up and give it another name, — call it typhoid, 
gastritis, black-jaundice, or something of that sort, — 
yellow-fever, never. 

The quarantine laws are very strict, needlessly and 
213 


214 


GOSSIP OF THE CARTBBEES. 


ridiculously, say our sister colonies, who are jealous of 
our prosperity and careless of their own reputation. 

Now, I believe we cannot be too particular, for we know 
what the small-pox and yellow-fever do in Barbados; and 
with our immense population and reputation as a health 
resort we must fight the fiends of disease to the utmost 
and drive them from our doors. 

Our last visitation was, as I have said, several years 
ago. How well I remember the year ! we still call it 
the “Yellow-fever year.” 

At first we laughed sceptically and called it something 
else; but as that did not palliate the fact that Death was 
busy in the colony gathering in his harvest, we unmasked 
the fiend and fought him face to face. 

First, a sea-captain died on his ship in the bay of the 
scourge. 

Later a planter, hard and inured to the tropics, fell 
ill with it in a distant parish and died. Then it came 
back to Bridgetown, and struck down the Head Mistress 
of the Princess Victoria School. 

This was a sad case, and cast a gloom over the colony, 
which during those awful six months that followed 
increased. The Head Mistress had but just come to 
the colony. The struggle for life at Home had been a 
hard one; but at last, as if victorious, she had obtained 
this place, which gave her position, home, and substance 
at the same time. 

Her sister, her only connection in the world, came with 
her. Both were young and typical Englishwomen. These 
full-blooded people from Home are just the ones the 
scourge smites. In twenty-four hours she was dead, and 
the sister, in that short time, was deprived of everything 
but life. 


IN THE VALLEY OF THE S/LA DO IV OF DEATIL 21 5 

Surely fate was hard to them : the one was taken just as 
siren-life was most alluring; the other left, as it were, 
suddenly deserted, to bear the full brunt of the battle. 

Society in its pity took up a subscription and sent her 
back to England, to meet what fate we know not. 

The Head Mistress, slain as she was winning the battle 
of life, lies under the palms and mahoganies in the 
church-yard, unmourned and forgotten now, with the weeds 
and frogs effacing the grave, and the dampness and moss 
eating out the “ In Memoriam ” on the tombstone. 

These deaths were just to let us know that the disease 
was present, for soon after it broke out in various places 
at once. Every day you heard of fresh cases, and people 
began to go about in black, smelling strongly of camphor. 

Then every house was like a dentist’s office, filled with 
a sickening odor and dread. Society languished — no one 
had any heart for amusement. The great leveller recog- 
nized no rank. A pall was thrown over Government 
House : Her Excellency died. 

The deadly fever next attacked the garrison, and a 
panic spread through the ranks from the General down. 
He and his little army moved into the country, and the 
General sought for himself the highest possible elevation. 
These men would have fought willingly and desperately 
with their country’s foes, but the whole camp trembled 
with dread of this unseen, deadly enemy. 

In the morning the doctor pronounced Colonel Heavy- 
man ill with yellow-fever. There was a mail-steamer sail- 
ing for Home in the evening. Mrs. Heavyman, in a panic, 
packed her things, chewing camphor all the while, and 
then with never a farewell or a thought for old Heavyman, 
who had taken her from a dreary village in Cornwall and 
given her all the brilliancy and charm of military life, 


2i6 


GOSSIP OP THE CARIBBEES, 


scuttled off, in her hurry forgetting her rouge-pot, and 
leaving the Colonel to die in the arms of a black orderly. 

Young Jarvis, sent out as assistant surgeon to the regi- 
ment, brought with him his bride ; but the fearful report of 
the epidemic and its ravages terrified him with the thought 
of seeing his wife fall a victim and leave him desolate and 
despairing, and he went back Home to court-martial and 
life prospects forever ruined. 

Such a cynical, maligant, far-reaching fiend is this 
yellow-fever ! 

The Bands no longer played ; the Savanna was a scorched, 
weedy pasture ; the barracks were closed and deserted ; a 
sense of desolation reigned everywhere. 

Then trade left the island, and the bay, so full of ships 
from every quarter of the globe, was empty. The very 
south wind ceased to blow, and a brazen sun burned in a 
cobalt sky. We were plague-stricken ! 

None of us knew how soon we would be down. The 
haunting, unnerving dread was everywhere. 

The whites suffered more than the blacks, but all alike 
were mowed down by the reaper. 

Formerly at the busiest part of the day the streets would 
be full of life and noisy ; now they were silent, and here 
and there stood groups of black-garbed men telling each 
other in whispers of some friend gone, some home deso- 
lated. Was there a moral lesson meant for us in all this, 
I wonder ? 

Pretty Miss Madden, who labored under the great dis- 
advantage that her papa sold salt-fish and onions by 
retail, but had made a fortune out of it, was a victim. 

Mrs. St. John, whose father and grandfather and great- 
grandfather had been Chief-Justices, lost in one dark hour 
both husband and idolized only son. 


IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 21 / 

Was there no sympathy between that haughty, bereaved 
woman and the Maddens, as they met, in crej>e and grief 
unspeakable, and for the first time on an equality, in the 
little mortuary chapel ? 

One day I heard that Captain Featherstone, whom I knew 
slightly, had been taken ill at Gun Hill, where the troops 
were, and had been sent back to the St. Anne’s barracks 
at once by the panic-stricken General. His wife, a sweet 
pleasant woman, and their boy, a child of ten, were in their 
old quarters in the barracks, and save for a Bridgetown 
doctor, who came once a day, were completely alone. 

The touch of pity that makes the whole world akin 
seized me, and I drove up to St. Anne’s at once. 

I walked in boldly, as I got no answer when I knocked. 
The Featherstones were poor, and had nothing but their 
pay. The parlor was tastefully furnished ; but I knew 
that the bright chintz covered plain pine, and that the 
gracefully draped tables were originally old flour barrels. 

There was no one in the room, so I knocked again 
loudly, and presently Mrs. Featherstone came in. Her 
pretty face was drawn and careworn, and there were dark 
rings under her eyes. She looked completely exhausted 
and not at all surprised to see me, an utter stranger. 

^‘You must excuse the intrusion, Mrs. Featherstone,” 
I said, introducing myself. I have heard you were here 
all alone and in great trouble, and I have called to see if 
1 can be of any service to you. I am a native, and have 
had the fever, and I understand something of nursing. I 
know what it is to have trouble in a strange country. Let 
me help you.” Her lips quivered. It was the first sign 
of sympathy she had had from the outside world. 

“ You are very kind,” she said wearily. “ I was almost 
despairing. My husband is very ill, and this morning 


2I8 


GOSSIP OP THE CAR IB BEES. 


Robbie was taken with the fever. There is an old negress 
in the kitchen, but she is of little use to me. Oh, it is 
very good of you ! ” 

I found out what was most needed, and then went into 
town and brought back my sister. 

For the next fortnight Bertha and I lived in the Feather- 
stones' cramped quarters. I never saw such devotion as 
Mrs. Featherstone lavished upon her husband and child. 
There was an element of pain in it to me. She would not 
permit us to watch beside their beds, but towards morn- 
ing she would fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, and then 
Bertha would take her place. At other times we rarely 
broke the sacredness of that room. I had always heard of 
Featherstone as being a great deal at the Club and Mess 
Room, that he usually lost at cards, that he drank more 
than was good for him, and was not very domestic. He 
was a handsome man with very delightful manners ; but 
little as I knew of him, I felt he was just the one to suc- 
cumb to the temptations of army life. 

He had only a mild attack and soon mended ; all he 
needed was nursing and care, and had it not been for his 
wife, he would probably have died. 

Robbie, too, pulled through, and Bertha and I used to 
chaff Mrs. Featherstone mildly on her fears. She would 
smile sadly and say, foolish woman, what a debt she owed 
us, and which she could never repay. 

She always gave me the impression of being unhappy in 
mind ; and when Featherstone was convalescing and had 
the strength to perceive (the fever leaves you, if you pull 
through, terribly weak), Bertha told me she noticed a sort 
of estrangement between him and his wife, which made 
her feel like an intruder when she entered the sick-room. 

One morning Bertha had gone into town and I was try- 


IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH 2ig 

ing to read in the parlor, when I overheard the following 
conversation. In our climate, for ventilation, an open 
lattice-work runs round the top of the rooms, which may 
truly be called the ears of walls. 

Here is a letter, Robert, that came a week ago for 
you. I thought you were not strong enough to read it 
before.” After a pause, during which he was evidently 
reading, — 

“ Curse the brute ! He would dun me for twenty 
pounds on the brink of the grave. Where am I to get it 
I should like to know ? I owe every farthing I can lay 
my hands on. I shall have to sell out, that’s all.” A 
quiet voice replied, — 

“ There is the diamond locket you gave me on our wed- 
ding-day; that will fetch twenty pounds. Won’t you turn 
that into money ? ” I trembled for his reply. 

“ No ; you look dowdy enough now at a dance or a 
dinner. People will say I am a selfish brute and don’t 
keep my wife like a lady. I say, Mary, can’t you change 
your expression ? I am beastly tired of seeing you moping 
about. I should never have married you, if I had thought 
you would change as you have.” 

I went out upon the balcony noiselessly, as I heard 
Mrs. Featherstone coming, and 1 did not wish her to have 
the mortification of knowing that I had heard what had 
transpired. 

“How is your patient?” I said, as I re-entered the 
room. She was lying on a lounge with an air of great 
weariness and, I thought, despair. 

“ He is doing nicely. I think he will soon be able to 
walk about.” In fact, the invalids had so far recovered 
that Bertha and I were on the point of going home, when 
Mrs. Featherstone, on getting up from the breakfast table 
one morning, fainted. 


220 


rOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


After what seemed an endless time she revived, but 
had a roasting fever, and the doctor pronounced it the 
deadly scourge. 

At first we thought she would die before night ; but she 
rallied, and we were more hopeful. 

Bertha never left her, and she begged her piteously for 
her husband. He was, of course, much shocked by her 
sudden illness, but scarcely realized her danger, as both 
he and Robbie had pulled through. 

“Come, cheer up, Mary,” he said. “ You’ll* be about 
again soon.” 

He really loved her ; but his nature had become narrow 
and selfish under the worldliness of military life, which 
has been the undoing of a stronger man than Featherstone. 

Mrs. Featherstone looked at him with her plaintive 
eyes. 

“ Robert,” she whispered, drawing him down to her, 
“ I know I’ve not been a suitable wife to you.” A sob 
broke her voice. “ I feel I shall not recover, and I am 
really glad of it, for the bond has been irksome to you, 
and I have changed since we were married. It will be a 
release to you, and you’ll be happier now.” 

Bertha said a sudden change came over him. Maybe he 
remembered the days when he had plighted his troth to 
this sad-faced, patient woman, and life had looked so very 
hopeful to both ; and maybe now, when too late, he realized 
what she had been to him. She had kept her vows, but 
what of him ? 

The realization beside a death-bed that we have not 
cherished the dying one as we ought, that every moment 
makes it more and more impossible to atone for our 
neglect, is akin to madness. Remorse but magnifies 
every slight, and tinges our too-late anguish with unbear- 
able pain. 


IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 221 


Vainly we cry “Halt!” but Death and his legions 
advance over the dreary plains of neglected opportunities, 
making them but the drearier, and, scaling the last fortress, 
put life to the sword. 

We faint at the horrors of such a contest that we have 
ourselves made horrible; but Death is cynical, and gives 
us over to agony, remorse, despair unspeakable. Our 
hearts lie dead on the battle held, while we are the 
prisoners of war. 

“ You must not die and leave me 1 ’’ cried Featherstone 
in a sudden burst of painful emotion. “ I do love you. 
Oh, forgive me, forgive me, for all I have made your 
poor heart suffer! Mamie darling, I have been a brute 
to you, but I love you, yes, I love you.” Then, almost 
roughly, “ You shall not die and leave me, do you hear ? 
You shall not, you simply shall not. I will not permit it. 
My God, I was mad to have neglected you ! ” 

Mrs. P'eatherstone’ s eyes were closed and her expres- 
sion was peaceful, more so than Bertha had ever seen it, 
and she held his quivering hands tightly. 

After this Featherstone was changed : he would not 
leave her side, and the old love that had once delighted 
him came back now, hungry from its long fast. 

Robbie, with his big hollow eyes looking out from his 
face drawn and pale from the awful fever, gazed in mute 
astonishment at the strangeness of his father’s devotion. 

Mrs. Featherstone was visibly failing ; but she was hap- 
pier than she had been in many a long day. She had not 
the strength to fight the disease, — mental suffering had 
weakened her, and the fever had an easy victim. A week 
after she was first taken we were all in her room ; slie had 
been dozing and just awakened. The end was not far off. 

“ Robbie,” she called to her son, “ be a good boy. 


222 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


dear, and a comfort to papa. Don’t let him be sad ; 
keep him cheerful. Remember, dear, for mamma’s 
sake.” Then, drawing Featherstone’s face close down to 
her, she kissed him tenderly. “Don’t grieve that you have 
ever rendered me unhappy. You have not. I have 
always loved you, and I know you love me ; it makes 
death painless, dearest, it is far better so.” Feather- 
stone was a picture of hopeless despair. 

“ My wife, my heart is broken ! ” was all he could say. 
Mrs. Featherstone was about to answer when she was 
seized with a spasm : the black vomit, the final and most 
awful symptom of the disease, was on her, and she expired 
shortly in a heart-rending scene. 

Unable to speak, and writhing in fearful physical pain, 
she still held Featherstone’s hands, by the mere touch 
showing him that her thoughts were with him to the end. 

Bertha and I left him alone with his dead, — that room 
was too sacred for strangers to trespass there. 

That very evening, as the sun, sullen, crimson ball that 
he was in these days, was setting, we buried Mrs. Feather- 
stone. 

I shall never forget that funeral. I have never been to 
one since. Poor little Robbie, clad in deepest black, 
borrowed • by Bertha from a friend, seemed hardly to 
realize what it all meant. 

We laid her to rest in the church-yard. A sentinel palm 
towers over her tomb, a peaceful but lonely spot. Through- 
out the service an unnatural calm held Featherstone ; but 
when he heard that most awful of all sounds, the thud of 
the earth on the coffin, he wrung my hand as if in a vise. 

No, I shall never forget that scene ; the little mortuary 
chapel, with even as I looked another wildly loved one 
being borne by despairing friends to his last home ; the 


IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 223 

clergyman in white surplice, uttering the solemn rit- 
ual of the dead ; the little band of mourners in sombre 
black ; a few negroes with bowed heads and sobs standing 
at respectful distance ; the orphaned boy not comprehend- 
ing the scene ; the bell in the chapel tolling ; the broken- 
hearted man beside me, with every fibre of his being 
stretched to the breaking point ; and the thud of the earth 
as it hid the coffin from view forever. 

Bertha had locked up the quarters where this tragedy 
occurred, and Featherstone and Robbie went home with 
me. 

Featherstone got leave later on and went Home. He 
never completely recovered from the shock of his wife’s 
death. He died last year in India, prematurely old, and 
with the words “ At last ! ” on his lips. 

Robbie is a subaltern now, but his training has been 
such that I doubt if the temptation of army life will ever 
assail him grievously. 

Oh, the unwritten tragedies of the “fever year!” Oh 
the paralysis of society with its flippancy and cynicism 
and its deep enmities and scandals that ruin fellow- 
creatures 1 

Surely, even the horrors of an epidemic have some use 
and purpose, if, although roughly, they tear off the false 
mask of life and lay bare true sympathy and loving, 
kindness. 






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A SCIENTIST DAY BY DAY. 


“ Ford. ‘ Now, Sir John, here is the heart of my purpose : You are 
a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse, of great 
admittance, authentic in your place and person, generally allowed 
for your many warlike, courtlike, and learned preparations.’” 

The Merry JVwes of Windsor. 



A SCIENTIST DAY BY DAY. 


His father was a Paupau man, and had come from 
Guinea as a child ; and his mother was a Sierra Leone 
woman, and both were as black as the Black Hole of 
Calcutta. 

The missionaries had got hold of the couple, and they 
had been baptized. One child was born to them, who 
afterwards became famous as Professor Browntop. 

He used to say, with a half-deprecatory air, and his eyes 
rolled back showing only the saffron whites, — 

“ My late revered father was very devout. He prayed 
God to give him a son as wise as Solomon of old, and God 
had compassion on his servant and answered his prayer. 
I am the answer to that prayer.’^ • 

This holy and devout man, reclaimed by the missionaries 
from African darkness, fell under the notice of a benevo- 
lent and learned prelate, who came out from England with 
lofty ideas of the negro. 

He devoted his entire life to raising their moral stand- 
ard, and took the miraculously born son of the Papau man 
and Sierra Leone woman under his own roof. 

Under the distinguished patronage of this Very Rev- 
erend Father in God, young Browntop soon got to have 
his innate high opinion of his own excellence greatly 
increased. No wonder; his father, whenever he saw him, 

227 


228 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


would impress upon him the fact that he was indeed an 
answer to prayer and destined to do great things ! The 
Bishop, whom he hoodwinked by the subtlest attention, 
praised his ability on all occasions. 

He mastered Greek and Latin, and at Codrington Col- 
lege bore off the Mathematical prize. The Bishop des- 
tined him, in company with several other young chaps of 
color, to fulfil his long-cherished dream of carrying the 
torch of life to his benighted fellow-men in Africa. 

But when the time came this young hopeful, by the ter- 
rible excess of his grief at the thought of leaving his 
beloved “ master,” gained the latter’s consent to remain. 

For a short time this paragon of mathematical and 
classical lore kept a -school. But not long ; for he was 
jealous of his knowledge, and preferred to keep what he 
had to himself rather than to impart it to unappreciative 
nigger children. The School Board also objected. In 
the mean time his “ master,” as he called the Bishop, as 
though he were a great statesman and the Bishop his 
sovereign (Browntop was inordinately conceited) left the 
colony. 

Kow obliged to shift for himself, he got a position as 
Warehouse keeper in the Customs, where he is to this day. 
He also took to dabbling in Phrenology, which has gained 
him his present enviable fame, and caused him to be 
dubbed Professor. 

This title was given him more in satirical chaff than in 
earnest; but he holds on to it jealously, as if it were a 
K. C. M. G. at least. 

As the years went by, his opinion of himself increased. 
The merchants’ clerks would flatter his palpable vanity 
outrageously, and, really, at last he got to consider himself 
as a Phrenologist unrivalled. 


A SCIENTIST DAY BY DAY. 229 

You might think this a highly disagreeable feature, but 
it was not. Professor Browntop’s conceit was not dis- 
agreeable at all, it was amusing. 

He was so conceited that he was as if on a higher plane 
than everybody else. Always suave, polite, and with an 
air of deference when speaking to you, you were disarmed. 
He meant no insult. Yes, it was laughable, this over- 
weening vanity which nothing could ruffle, but was easily 
intensified. 

The colony possessed no more striking character than 
the Professor with a pair of spectacles on his flat nose, 
critically examining the papers brought for his signature, 
as if they were Bills of Parliament waiting for the Royal 
sanction. 

Should you attempt to mention subtly that you wished 
you had his head for figures, or how you envied him his 
skill in manipulating heads, he would at once begin a long 
discourse on his life. 

He would talk about his father and his prayers to God, 
some of which were really remarkable for the requests 
made to the Deity, his “ master,” his career at Codrington, 
and end with a dissertation on Phrenology. 

In all of his conversations the Ego was plentifully inter- 
larded. The heavy, intense conceit of the man lifted him 
above ordinary vanity ; he could flatter, too, never was 
known to lose his temper, suave to a degree, but in it all 
was Professor Browntop’s superiority. 

One day I had some warrants to pass through the Cus- 
toms, and I went to him. I introduced myself ; and having 
heard of his peculiarity and not being in a hurry, I said 
casually, — 

“ Professor, will you let me know when you next have a 
Phrenological seance? I desire to come. I have heard 


230 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


a deal about you from His Excellency.” By rights, I 
should have taken my turn in line with the crowd of greasy 
and insolent merchants' clerks, but the reference to the 
Governor (Browntop loved the great) won him to ask me 
to come behind the rails. 

Nothing daunted by a sullen murmuring among the 
clerks, he despatched my business, and began a friendly 
chat. 

He told me of his great love for mathematics, and the 
compliments paid him on his amazing proficiency in that 
science, and how he had once said that the woman he 
should marry must be a mathematician ; how his wife had 
not been one, but, on the contrary, cared nothing for prob- 
lems or whether Ji; ^ -{-y ^ = z^. 

Feeling it his duty to cultivate her taste in that line, he 
said he had explained several simple equations to her dur- 
ing the courtship, and put her into trigonometry during 
the honeymoon ! 

Professor Browntop and I after this were great friends, 
and he read me his famous letter to the Governor, which 
you may read farther on, and of which he is justly proud. 

Now, this letter loses nearly all its comicality by not 
being read aloud by the Professor himself with the proper 
inflections. The Governor, on receipt of the letter, was 
entertaining at lunch two or three man-of-warsmen and 
some ladies. Knowing the Professor and his amusing 
self-conceit, he thought nothing would entertain his guests 
more than to send for the Professor and have him read 
aloud to the company his own letter. 

He prepared his guests for the joke, and sent an orderly 
to summon Professor Browntop to Government House. 
The Professor received the summons in the midst of his 
work at the Custom House, and went into ecstasies, and 


A SCIENTIST DAY BY DAY 


231 


was more benevolently important than ever. He told the 
assembled body of dirty merchants’ clerks, in a rambling 
harangue, of the great honor just conferred upon him by 
His Excellency, and with the air of a sovereign receiving 
the acclaim of his people, he went home to dress for Gov- 
ernment House amid the satirical cheers of the crowd, 
which he mistook entirely for true applause. He arrived 
at Government House, and now his egotism stood him in 
good stead. He was not in the slightest abashed ; but 
bowing low to the Governor, another bow with his hand 
on his heart to the ladies, and an inclination to the gentle- 
men, he delivered a speech thanking the Governor for his 
recognition of his merits so publicly, and rambled off as 
usual on to an epitome of his entire life. 

The Governor finally interrupted him and asked him, 
as his letter was such a choice bit of classical literature, if 
he would kindly read it aloud, so that all present might 
benefit by it. Satire of the grossest kind never made 
even so much as a dent on his impervious casing of ego- 
tism. Tingling, therefore, with pomposity and the wel- 
come flattery of the Governor, he read the following letter 
with dramatic effect : — 

Barbados. 

His Excellency, 

Sir William Proudface, K.C.M.G. 

May it please your Excellency, 

That which was for some time dawning on the horizon, fraught 
with no little anxiety to myself, and very reasonably so, to wit : 
the departure of your Excellency from Barbados, to the more lucra- 
tive government of Trinidad, has at last appeared as an unpleasant 
reality. Your Excellency having made manifest, on the housetop, 
your appreciation of my humble talent as a Phrenologist since the year 
18—, when your Excellency kindly allowed me to give a lecture 
under your Patronage ; nor did you stop there, but together with 


232 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Lady Proudface [a nod of the head in her ladyship’s direction] had 
the hand still outstretched [pause], and even up to “ yesterday ” were 
to be found, ’mid inclemency of weather, helping me through another 
Lecture ! ! Taught, as I was, always to be thankful for such acts, I 
could not suffer your Excellency to leave our shores without bringing 
to your mind my last indebtedness to your Excellency, for not only 
assisting me to promulgate Phrenology, but also for helping (methinks 
unawares to yourself) to supplement my small salary. Foremost 
among all favors of which I have been the almost singular recipient, up 
to this time of my life (my education under good Bishop Praise- 
fule excepted) is that never-to-be-forgotten act [powerful emphasis] of 
yours, when your Excellency so gentlemanly and nobly [with waver- 
ing emotion] called on me, in May last, to determine phrenologically 
the dispositions of your family. In that act was fully displayed your 
Excellency’s confidence in me, as well as the countenancing my gift ; 
and the fruit attendant thereon is the fact, so far as it is known, that 
complexion is a thing of little moment with your Excellency, and that 
you are ever active to seize every opportunity to confer honor on the 
“ deserving.” If in the above assurance there is any pleasure to your 
Excellency, I crave permission to state it. Hitherto, Trinidad has 
been dear to me, inasmuch as in that island there resides my ever-be- 
loved “master” [with a sigh, eyes upturned], he who, as a natural 
father, had so trained me, that I now appear to an advantage before 
an enlightened Public ; but now there will be another link to the 
chain of endearment so soon as your Excellency shall have settled 
there. Oh [in the highest tone of voice] how remarkable the coinci- 
dence that the letter “P” [long pause] begins the surnames of 
both ! ! Though your Excellency has not been able, up to the pres- 
ent, to promote me, yet I have good reason to believe that my promo- 
tion is uppermost in your Excellency’s mind. Should your Excel- 
ency be unable to do any good for me in that matter ere your depart- 
ure, I have great confidence that your Excellency will so record it as 
not to suffer me to be overlooked by your successor. I must remind 
your Excellency of a promise made me in i8 — , that you will give 
me a testimonial of ability as a phrenologist before you leave the 
island. Since your Excellency will have to govern a people mixed and 
numerically greater than the inhabitants of Barbados — when, too, 
the bow of your mind must be kept fully bent, I wish from the depths 


A SCIENTIST DAY BY DAY. 


233 


of my heart [with wavering emotion] that Heaven may grant your 
Excellency, as he did to Solomon of old, wisdom and understanding 
for the purpose. [Different tone, eyes upturned.] It remains for me 
to wish Lady Proudface, the Misses Proudface, and your Excellency, 
not forgetting “ baby” [very emphatic], a happy sojourn in Trinidad; 
and may the last words of Addison, quoted by your Excellency some- 
time since to the Harrisonians, be yours fully to realize, is the humble 
wish of one ever grateful, ever your Excellency’s humble servant, 

Rehoboam Browntop. ; 

To have heard and seen the Professor read the above 
was one thing, to tell it quite another. It is impossible to 
do justice to the tones of voice, gestures, and appearance 
of the man. As he stood there in his suit of black, the 
glasses on his flat nose, the calm superior expression of 
his face, from which at times in the course of his theatri- 
cal reading the eyes entirely disappeared, leaving only 
the saffron whites, making him look like a grotesque mask, 
it was with difficulty that any one could keep from laugh- 
ing, and one or two had secretly gagged themselves. I 
doubt if any one present ever forgot that day. I am sure 
the Professor has not ; he never tires talking of it. 

A couple of years ago Professor Browntop went to Eng- 
land on leave ; and while there he gave lectures on Phre- 
nology in Hyde Park on Sundays, manipulating the skulls 
of many people who were so much struck by his erudition, 
his color, his style, and the effect of it all upon them, that 
they described their admiration at length in letters to him. 

Since his return he carries these laudatory epistles 
about with him, and reads them in his own inimitable way 
to any one who will listen. 

One compared his oratory to that of Mr. Gladstone, to 
the disparagement of the latter. Another was surprised 
that his forecast of her character was so true. Another 


234 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


thought it advisable to take up a Subscription at the Man- 
sion House to erect a statue to him. All agreed that he 
should settle in London, as he would be appreciated and 
would raise Phrenology to its place among the sciences. 

These letters, smudged and blotted, are wretched com- 
positions of the typical Hyde Park public meeting fre- 
quenters. But Professor Browntop considers them the 
best of testimonials, and always reads them, as a pre- 
face to the lectures he gives for the mutual benefit of 
himself and the American visitors at the Hastings Hotel. 

The Professor is always dignified and wrapt up in self- 
approbation ; but still, in spite of being but a Warehouse- 
keeper, and the European recognition of his genius and 
his fellowship with Excellencies, he finds time to remem- 
ber a friend less en evidence. 

On bidding him farewell lately, he begged me with 
tears in his eyes, in that preposterously and harmlessly 
bombastic way of his, to give him an old penknife or an 
ink-bottle as a souvenir. Overcome, I replied, as I gave 
him an old cigar case, — 

“ Professor, the friendship of such a genius as you is of 
more value than royal favor. May success ever attend 
you ! ” and I rung his hand with a wicked laugh in my 
sleeve. 

He returned the grasp with emotion — emotion too deep 
for words. 

The last I saw of him as I turned away, he was envel- 
oped in dust with head uplifted and eyes rolled out of 
sight, only the yellow whites showing. 

Poor, harmless, bombastic egotist, he was invoking a 
blessing on my head ! 

N. B. — The Professor ’s letter is the contribution of a very worthy friend 
in the Colonial Service, to whose suggestions I am indebted for the above 
, sketch. W. R. H. T. Jr, 


A DAUGHTER OF BABYLON. 


“ But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still ! ” 


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A DAUGHTER OF BABYLON. 


When Miss Saxthorpe came up from Antigua every one 
thought it a dodge of Mrs. Clarendon to regain her wan- 
ing popularity, and society would have contented itself 
with leaving its card and forgetting her. 

But either Mrs. Clarendon refused to be ignored, or 
there was something about Miss Saxthorpe that demanded 
recognition, for before she had been in the colony a week 
she was the chief topic of conversation. 

People who wanted to know her history had only to 
speak to Mrs. Clarendon, and she would ramble on gladly 
in her gossiping way, of how Lorna was the great-grand- 
daughter of one of Nelson’s captains, who after Trafalgar 
was rewarded with a peerage and the thanks of Parlia- 
ment. How the present Lord Saxthorpe was a usurper, 
and had no right to the title and estates, which by rights 
belonged to Miss Saxthorpe’s father, a poor planter in 
Antigua, who unfortunately could not raise the money 
requisite to carry on a trial which would hinge on his 
legitimacy. No one felt like lending him the means, even 
at high interest ; for though it was as clear as day that he 
was the rightful heir, yet the House of Lords might be 
prevailed upon to confirm the present incumbent of the 
barony in his titles and estates. 

We all knew Mrs. Clarendon so well that even if this 


237 


238 GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 

Story were true, it was quite sufficient for her to tell it for 
us all to place the bar-sinister across Miss Saxthorpe’s 
coat-of-arms. 

Well, despite this somewhat questionable origin, the fair 
young lady, by her charm of manner, dissipated the frown 
with which a section of society would have annihilated her. 

She was very, very pretty, very sensible, and had the 
merriest laugh in the world, even laughed at “god-mamma,” 
as she called Mrs. Clarendon, to her face, ridiculing all 
that lady’s foibles openly, but in such a way that Mrs. 
Clarendon was always kept e7i evidence. 

She shone by Miss Saxthorpe’s reflected light, which 
was far preferable to not shining at all. Of course, the men 
were delighted to have such a pretty girl in the colony ; 
but Miss Saxthorpe limited herself to receive only the 
attentions of the military ; civilian society never cared 
much about her afterward. 

She came for three weeks and stayed three months, and 
the garrison was inconsolable when she went back to 
Antigua. 

For sometime after her departure Mrs. Clarendon, like 
a top that continues to spin till the impetus with which it 
started is exhausted, continued to revolve in the social 
orbit with the impetus which Miss Saxthorpe’s popularity 
had given her. 

On her afternoons her drawing-room would be filled 
with old admirers of the fair Antiguan, listening to her 
letters, which Mrs. Clarendon read aloud, and which were 
full of fun. But in time these readings dropped off till her 
afternoons were a perfect farce, and the top that spun so 
loudly lay waiting to be wound up again. 

Miss Saxthorpe and her cleverness and her pretty face 
were nigh forgotten, when one sunshiny afternoon Mrs. 


A DAUGHTER OF BABYLOAT. 


239 


Clarendon’s heavy victoria drove up to the Band at Hast- 
ings, where were assembled all who called themselves and 
were called Society. The old-fashioned carriage wriggled 
somehow or other in among the network of vehicles, by 
previous instruction of Mrs. Clarendon, up to a prominent 
place, and halted behind His Excellency’s. 

Mrs. Clarendon’s horse, which looked as if oats were 
not included in his daily fare, began a greedy attack on 
the lowered top of the Governor’s carriage. His Excel- 
lency turned angrily, as if to swear at the coachman for 
not holding up his horse’s head, when he caught sight of 
the occupants of the carriage and bowed. 

Ordering his groom to drive forward out of the reach of 
Mrs. Clarendon’s ravenous beast, he got out and went up 
to her. 

Ah, what a long, dreary time it was since this lady 
had been so honored by a man in his position ! Her fat, 
unwieldy body bridled with satisfaction, and she shot a 
triumphant glance at Lady Claude Vernon across the 
road. 

The cause of this prodigious attention on the Governor’s 
part was Miss Saxthorpe, and Mrs. Clarendon could not 
have taken a more skilful way to have shown society that 
her Mascot had come back. 

In one of her rambling talks on all manner of people 
and things, I think she must have told some one why her 
god-daughter had returned so unexpectedly. It was very 
soon reported that Miss Saxthorpe’s mother had come up 
from Antigua with her daughter, and, appearing before the 
amazed Mrs. Clarendon, had said, — 

“ Matilda, you must take charge of Lorna. We are as 
good as ruined. The estates are mortgaged to the hilt, 
and the family is so large that it distracts me to think 


240 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


what is to become of them. All the spare cash we can 
scrape together must be sent to the boys in the Army. 
The girls have absolutely nothing. Matilda, you must 
take her and marry her quickly ; it is only right as her god- 
mother to do something for her.” 

Then it was added that in quite a tragical scene Mrs. 
Saxthorpe anathematized that usurper and impoverisher of 
her family, the present Baron Saxthorpe, and prophesied 
all sorts of woe to England for not protecting her West 
Indian children and their staple commodity, the almighty 
sugar, which had in these latter days sunk out of sight in 
market value. So grewsome did she paint the picture 
of the break-up of the Empire, that Mrs. Clarendon, as if 
to avert the impending cataclysm, had embraced her and 
comforted her and adopted Lorna. 

The story went, too, that when Mrs. Saxthorpe had 
returned to her mortgages and the eyry in Antigua from 
which she foresaw the dissolution of the Empire, Mrs. 
Clarendon discovered her god-daughter lying in bed in a 
state of nudity, the explanation of which was that her 
mamma had taken back to Antigua with her every vestige 
of her clothing for a younger sister. 

Mrs. Clarendon’s rage, it was said, was unbounded, 
and she had had to clothe Miss Saxthorpe from the start 
from head to foot. 

The fair pauper was determined not to make herself 
out other than she was; and so this report, whether exag- 
gerated or not, was not denied, and with only her wit and 
good looks to recommend her. Miss Saxthorpe undertook 
to conquer the little world she moved in. 

Of all the moths that fluttered about this candle, two 
especially fluttered near enough to be scorched by its 
flame. 


A DAUGHTER OF BABYLOiV. 


241 


Donnythorne was a major in the 150th, and a man of 
fully fifty. He had seen a deal of active service, and his 
thin face was much bronzed by tropical suns. People 
called him distinguished-looking, and found him a 
clever, interesting man of the world. But I am inclined 
to think this was due to his somewhat stand-offish 
manner and his being the brother of Miss Donny- 
thorne. 

This lady was ten years older than her brother and 
quite unlike him, being as stout and florid as he was 
parched and scrawny. 

She had a habit of suddenly swooping down upon him 
in whatever part of the Empire he might be and making 
him long visits. 

It was in one of these vulture-like flights that she had 
found him in Barbados, and was using him up in a 
round of dinners. 

Major Donnythorne heartily disliked society, and he 
dreaded these visitations of hers. But Miss Donnythorne 
loved gayety and attention, and never could have enough 
of either; and then Miss Donnythorne was very rich, 
and the Major was afraid of her. 

Yes, the people on the station thought he was distin- 
guished-looking and delightful. She was considered 
something a little above the common, for she had been 
presented at Court; and long before she came to the 
colony we had read in the columns of Truth of her gowns 
and her diamonds and her doings in the very crane de la 
crane of society at Home. 

She was the Major’s half-sister; his father on the death 
of Miss Donnythorne’s mother married again, of which 
marriage he was the only child. The first Mrs. Donny- 
thorne was the heiress of a millionnaire ironmonger 


242 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


whose money saved the Donnythorne estates from going 
to the hammer. 

The family was comparatively old, and stood well in 
the county. Miss Donnythorne, who on her mother’s 
side was a nobody, was excessively proud of her birth, 
and would have had the Major marry and prolong the 
race, offering as an inducement to bequeath all her 
money to his son, who should reign at Donnythorne 
Manor and be made a baronet at least. 

The Major, whose worldly possessions were small, 
and who was utterly unable to keep up the Manor or to 
live at all without the aid of his rich sister, stood in great 
awe of her. Accordingly, when, as at present, she came 
and settled upon him, with her maid and her gowns and 
her diamonds and her unquenchable love of society, he 
could make no protest. 

The Major’s wings (hitherto he did not know that he 
had any) were singed by the Saxthorpe candle. 

Captain Destries was also burnt by the flame. 

If the cold and formal Major, however, was past his 
prime, Destries was five and twenty, and wonderfully 
good-looking and fascinating to women, but from a mar- 
riageable point of view, very far from desirable. 

He was much given to a Bacchanalian life, and was 
deeply in debt. He was the typical fast officer: full of 
energy, which he only showed when necessary, at other 
times idle, supercilious, fond of his dogs and horses, 
betting heavily on the results of races at Home, playing 
high, and drinking without being the worse for it. Fond 
of women, he hated society, and was seen nowhere save 
at Government House on a Birthday night. 

He played polo as no one else could in the 150th; and 
it was at polo, after he had wrung victory from the men 


A DAUGHTER OF BABYLOH. 


243 


from the “Juno,’’ that he met Miss Saxthorpe, and 
thought she was the only girl worth looking at since he 
left Home. 

Whenever Miss Saxthorpe drove up to the Polo Grounds 
with Mrs. Clarendon in the heavy old-fashioned victoria, 
Destries was always on hand to help them alight. 

Nothing ever escapes notice in such a small community 
as ours, and we all noticed that he was in love with the 
beautiful Antiguan. 

Mrs. Clarendon was quite wide awake to his attentions, 
and kept telling her charge that with her beauty and 
advantages (Miss Saxthorpe had spent two years at a 
fashionable boarding-school in Pairs before the crash in 
sugar) she would be a fool to look at Destries. She 
also told her many things about the wild young fellow 
that I am afraid painted him blacker than he was. 

On the other hand, she sounded Donnythorne’s praises 
in her usual voluble way; but Miss Saxthorpe heard so 
much of his bel air^ his old name, his prospective wealth, 
and Miss Donnythorne’s diamonds, that they had no 
magic left in them. 

Miss Saxthorpe was too universal a favorite not to 
receive marked attention, and Mrs. Clarendon was in her 
element. She went everywhere, and made a great fuss 
about her god-daughter, whom she loved chiefly, I am 
bad enough to think, on account of the importance she 
derived from chaperoning her. 

“Lorna,” she would say, “wear this scarf. You know 
that pretty throat of yours is delicate. Pray, Captain 
Destries, don’t keep her out in the night air long;” or, 
“ My dear Major ” (at the end of a ball when he would 
come up to claim her; she always read Lorna’s pro- 
grammes and knew who her partners were), “My dear 


244 


GOSSIP OF THE CAR/BBEES. 


Major, we were just going. My poor child is very tired, 
— well, to please you, you may dance it,” and Donny- 
thorne knew that Mrs. Clarendon would not object if he 
danced everything with Miss Saxthorpe. 

They had their quarrels. Miss Saxthorpe was head- 
strong and would do as she pleased, and Mrs. Clarendon 
was nearly always worsted. 

Miss Saxthorpe, on the whole, was fond of her and 
very grateful to her, and would never permit any slighting 
remark to be made of her god-mamma in her hearing ; but 
it angered her intensely to hear Mrs. Clarendon flatter 
her publicly, and to have attention called to different 
parts of her anatomy, as if she were a prize horse. 

Miss Donnythorne took a great fancy to h-er, and invited 
her quite often to her dinners. The Major was attentive 
in his nonchalant way. He seemed to feel that she was 
his for the asking. It was useless to get angry with him: 
his manners and age, as it were, resented the idea of a 
slight, or, if a slight were intended, he let it pass 
unnoticed, for he could not understand how any one 
could think of making him a target for ridicule. 

On the contrary. Miss Saxthorpe could say anything 
she pleased to her other admirer, and Destries passed 
many a mauvais quart d^heure in her company. 

He loved her for the great difficulty of winning her, and 
was persistent in breaking down every barrier placed in 
his way. 

Mrs. Clarendon who, where her charge’s interests were 
concerned, had her eyes very wide open, said to her one 
day, — 

“ Lorna, how much longer is this absurd state of affairs 
to last ? Why don’t you give that penniless, disreputable 
Destries his conge t You keep him dangling about 


A DAUGHTER OF BABVLOH. 


245 


you to your detriment ; and, though I know you are not 
mad enough to think of taking him, yet he seems to have 
a sort of air of proprietorship about him where you are 
concerned which I am sure Major Donnythorne does not 
like. I saw him scowling terribly at you yesterday when 
Destries was helping you into the carriage. It won’t do, 
Lorna, for the Major to get offended ; he is the best offer 
by far you will get in the colony. You know you must 
make a good match. Lady Claude Vernon and her set 
would be overjoyed if you took the Captain. They would 
say I didn’t know how to manage.” Miss Saxthorpe threw 
her arms around her god-mamma’s mammoth waist and, 
with her lovely face laughing up into hers, replied — 

“ Now, god-mamma, no lectures. I am not at all in a 
marrying mood to-day, and as to what Lady Claude Ver- 
non says, I am utterly indifferent. The Major and 
Destries are madly jealous of each other, and are great 
simpletons. Don’t be anxious as to my future ; I will look 
out well for it. The Major may scowl as much as he 
pleases. He makes me very angry sometimes ; he seems 
to think I really belong to him. He is perfectly ridiculous 
with his grand airs. I told him once he was too stiff and 
old-manish, and he was awfully, awfully furious; but he is 
too hard hit to be angry forever. And Destries is quite 
as bad and gives me a great deal of trouble. Don’t worry 
about me, god-mamma dear, I am not thinking of marrying 
for a long time yet.” Miss Saxthorpe would say this in a 
sweet, petting way ; and if Mrs. Clarendon ventured to 
remonstrate, she would continue in the same petting way to 
prove to her what a loss she would be to her socially, and 
draw such a gloomy picture of Mango Lodge with Miss 
Saxthorpe gone and no visitors to listen to her voluble 
conversation, that Mrs. Clarendon could only reassure 


246 


GOSS IP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


herself of the success of her designs by noticing that the 
Major still hung about her god-daughter in his cold way. 


Barbados is not noted for the beauty and variety of its 
scenery. The land is flat and carpeted with acres and 
acres of monotonous cane. From the top of Mt. Hilloby, 
the only high point in the island, to the very sand on the 
seashore, along the roads, under the planters’ very win- 
dows, everywhere the Almighty Cane rules supreme. To 
this insatiable monster everything is sacrificed. Here 
falls some refreshing grove of shade trees, there some 
mighty palm or curious bearded banyan, lonely scions of 
the primeval forest. Ponds are dried up, church-yards 
threatened, all for the honor and credit of this Moloch of 
agriculture. The only part that has escaped this demon, 
and, as it were, intrenched itself in impregnable fastnesses, 
is the narrow, rocky ledge of land that skirts the east 
coast, and lies under the shade of cliffs crowned by the 
cane. Here the trades blow in balmy purity ; here all is a 
desolate coral reef, from which aeons back the sea receded. 
Nothing could grow on this rocky coast-line, swept perpet- 
ually by the v»/ind and guarded from the inroads of the 
ocean here and there by a natural breakwater of huge 
monoliths of coral, carved into all sorts of fantastic shapes 
by the eternal wash of the waves. 'J'his rocky plateau is 
the sanatarium of the West Indies. It is quite a village, 
with its hotel and houses. On holidays the place teems 
with people from town, sniffing the pure salt air and ex- 
ploring the wonderful caves that extend under the cane- 
crowned cliffs back of the plateau in unfathomable 
darkness and mystery. To this place the doctor had or- 
dered Miss Donnythorne, who was feeling the effects of 


A DAUGHTER OF BABYLON. 


247 


the climate. Previous to her departure she had said to 
Mrs. Clarendon with considerable meaning, — 

“ I am going to ask Miss Saxthorpe to come down to 
visit me and shall take no refusal ; ” and the Major had 
said, — 

“ Miss Saxthorpe, I hope you will come, if you feel you 
can tear yourself away from the gayety of town for a few 
days and obtain rest at such a dull place.” To which the 
fair Antiguan had replied, — 

“You speak. Major, as if there were a doubt in your 
mind as to whether I could give up society even for a 
short time. And I tell you plainly, that I doubt if I could, 
even if as recompense I knew I should have the pleasure 
of your company.” 

No one had ever before dared to say such things to him, 
and it was Miss Saxthorpe’s very audacity and fearlessness 
that attracted him to her. 

Miss Donnythorne, too, did not escape her sarcasm. 
Miss Saxthorpe felt that fate was driving her on to a mar- 
riage with the Major, and she rebelled against it. But 
Miss Donnythorne liked the girl, and frankly told her that 
she would not resent anything she said. 

Miss Saxthorpe was quite aware of the brilliancy of the 
match, but .she could not love Major Donnythorne. The 
only escape from the dread of the thought of marrying 
Donnythorne was in marrying Destries. She loved him 
unknown to herself, and it was long before she realized 
the fact. 

He had nothing to offer her but his good looks, his 
love, and a share of the oppression of his overwhelming 
debts. 

In the face of her own doubtful position it would be 
madness for her to think of Destries, yet she told herself 


248 


COSS//^ OF THE CAR/BBEES. 


she was capable of doing impossible things. The day 
before she went down to the coast to visit Miss Donny- 
thorne, Mrs. Clarendon said to her, — 

“ Lorna, you know why you have been invited. You 
will have to give the Major a positive answer before you 
return. I cannot believe you will refuse him, and if you 
don’t love him, you will at least be able to respect him. 

The Countess of D never loved the Earl, yet they 

lived happily together, and when he died she mourned him 
two years in crepe. Your idea of love. Lorn a, is roman- 
tic and impossible outside of a French novel.” 

“You didn’t think so when you married Pozzo, at any 
rate.” Mrs. Clarendon’s large face burned and her im- 
mense frame shook with emotion at that name. 

“ I was an exception to prove the rule ; and, miss, I shall 
expect you to accept the Major or go back to Antigua. 
Lorna, dear, I am sure I can trust you. I will see that 
the settlements are all right.” 

Miss Saxthorpe felt as if she had got to the end of her 
resources when Destries called, looking very rueful. 

“ Verily, I see the Knight of the Doleful Countenance,” 
she cried. 

“Doleful, because you give me no hope. Lorna, your 
going to the Donnythornes’ means you will say ‘ Yes’ to 
the Major.” 

“ That is nothing to make you doleful. If you had the 
slightest ingenuity, you would run down to the coast your- 
self.” 

“You mean it? Why, it’s the same as saying ‘Yes’ 
to me ! Lorna, dearest, I am not good enough for you.” 

“ Not so fast, please. I fail to follow you. In the first 
place, my name is Miss Saxthorpe.” And she lowered her 
hazel eyes and curled her luscious lips in scorn ; a second 


A DAUGHTER OF BABYLON. 


249 


after she looked up, laughing in the most bewitching way, 
and her anger was gone. 

The impatient Destries, had he dared, would have 
caught her in his arms, for Miss Saxthorpe distracted him 
with her wilful variability. Ke had lost all control of his 
tongue in the early part of the acquaintance, and had told 
Miss Saxthorpe that he loved her as many times as there 
are hours in the day. 

As she had not made up her mind to marry him, and 
did not care to lose him entirely, she usually ridiculed 
him and affected to believe that he was only jesting, or 
turned the conversation skilfuly so that what he said lost 
its force. 

On this occasion he gave her to understand that he 
would follow her to the East Coast, at her request, and 
balk the Major. 

He squeezed painfully the slim fingers she gave him, 
and left her with bounding hope in his heart and relief in 
hers. 

She felt sure now that she could keep both the Major 
and his sister at bay, and pay her visit without the great 
annoyance of having to decide to say Yes or No to her 
brilliantly endowed lover. 

When Miss Saxthorpe alighted from the ’bus at the 
little hotel on the wind-swept rocks. Major Donnythorne 
was disagreeably surprised to see Captain Destries with 
her. Destries, in his pleasant and impetuous manner, said 
to the Major, — 

“ What invigorating air ! I felt an attack of fever com- 
ing on, so I came down to ward it off. How is your 
sister ? I am sure this splendid air must have improved 
her health. Give my regards to her. I will see her 
to-night. By Gad ! what a glorious place ! ” Touching 


250 


GOSS IF OF THE CARIBBEES. 


his hat to Miss Saxthorpe, he followed a porter into the 
house. 

The Major mumbled something which no one heard, and, 
consigning Miss Saxthorpe and her luggage to the care of 
his sister’s maid, walked away. 

Miss Donnythorne greeted her guest warmly, and in- 
sisted upon her going to her room and resting from the 
fatigue of the train. She expatiated on the absolute ne- 
cessity of rest as a preserver of health and beauty, especi- 
ally in such a climate, that Miss Saxthorpe, had she wished 
otherwise, could not but comply. 

Her windows had a splendid view of the wild breaker- 
beaten coast ; and, leaning on the sill with the fresh salt 
air tingling in her face, she watched, as if fascinated, the 
capricious indigo water turn into spray and snowy foam as 
it perpetually dashed itself, with an angry roar, against a 
mighty monolith of rock. Her face, which depended 
chiefly for its beauty upon expression, was discontented 
and gloomy. No one to have seen her now would have 
believed that the proud, vivacious Miss Saxthorpe, the 
loveliest and most enviable girl in the colony, could ever 
wear such an expression. She was deep in thought, and 
her thoughts were not pleasant. They ran upon the hard- 
ness of life, — always a disagreeable theme to meditate 
upon, and which Miss Saxthorpe thought was particularly 
hard in her case. She wondered that she could ever have 
been light-hearted. What a purgatory her girlhood in 
Antigua had been ! The memory of the old plantation 
in the country, with its dreary daily life, the scraping to 
save every sixpence, the houseful of brawling children, 
whom, by virtue of the money spent upon her when sugar 
did pay and she had had the advantages of a Paris board- 
ing-school, she had to teach and look after as the eldest, — 


A DAUGHTER OF BABVLOiV. 25 1 

the memory of those dreary, intolerable days was painful 
and made impossible any idea of return. 

But was her present state any better than the former, 
she questioned ? The thoroughness of her poverty was a 
reality from which there was no getting away. She was 
asked to sell herself to a man whom she could not love, 
in return for which she would get a good social position 
and bodily comfort for the rest of her days. 

On the contrary, there was one loop-hole for her to 
escape. That was by marrying Destries, whom she felt it 
would not be very hard to love. 

Such an act her world would call madness. She laughed 
scornfully at the thought ; but it would be like the unclean 
spirit in the parable whose last state was worse than the 
first. Would her life not be unlike her mother’s, where 
debt, poverty, and the struggling to keep up appearances 
had so long been at swords’ points with love, that the god 
had often been wounded severely, if not mortally .? She 
had been trained from childhood to endeavor to make a 
good match. 

“ With your good looks, Lorna, I feel that you are pro- 
vided for,” her mother had said many times. 

She rose from the window and stood before her glass. 
The reddish-brown hair was in disorder, but it only served 
to form an artistic framework for her lovely face. 

Despite the gloom and discontent of the mouth and 
eyes, she looked like a wood-nymph in a Salvator Rosa 
canvas. 

“ What is it all worth ? ” she sighed. ‘‘ I had better have 
never been beautiful, if my heart is to be sacrificed.” 

That evening at dinner she was as cold and formal as the 
Major himself, and so chilled him that, when Miss Donny- 
thorne, on a plea of headache, withdrew and left them to- 


252 


GOSS/P OF THE CARIBBEES. 


gether, he could not take advantage of the tHe-a-Ute ; and 
yet had he then formally offered her Donnythorne Manor 
and what would accrue from its possession with himself 
thrown in, she would probably have accepted, so variable 
was she and undecided as how to act. 

The following day her mood was in nowise changed. 
Destries and one or two people dropped into Miss Donny- 
thorne’s parlor, and the Major got no chance to talk to her. 

“ By the way. Miss Saxthorpe, have you heard of the 
wonderful caves on this coast ? ” said Destries. 

“No,” she replied ; “ but you may be sure they are frauds, 
if on dit has it that they are wonderful.” A faint smile 
rested on the Major’s lips. 

“ At any rate,” he thought, “ she is as bitter to him as 
to me.” 

“ If you don’t believe what Rumor says, would you 
object to visit them and see for yourself 'i ” continued 
Destries, not heeding her implied snub. “ We might get 
up a party, you know, and have an exploration.” 

Miss Saxthorpe said in her old lively manner, “Ah, 
now that would be jolly ! Dear Miss Donnythorne, 
what do you say to forming an exploring expedition and 
investigating these wonderful caves of Captain Des- 
tries ? ” Miss Donnythorne seemed doubtful, and glanced 
at her brother. Miss Saxthorpe turned to him and said, — 

“Now, Major, won’t you persuade your sister.? I am 
really dying to see the caves.” 

The lovely hazel eyes that had so often flashed upon 
him scornfully now rested upon him beseechingly ; and 
though he felt it was simply a pretext of Destries to be 
near her, yet said, — 

“ If you wish it. Miss Saxthorpe, you shall be gratified. 
I would like to investigate the caves myself, and will take 


A DAUGHTER OF BABYLON. 


253 


all the responsibility, and, provided we keep together, 
there can be no danger.” 

She thanked him warmly, and the next moment was 
talking to Destries animatedly about the expedition. Her 
dissatisfaction had vanished, and she was her natural self 
again. 

It was one of the chief charms of Miss Saxthorpe that 
her spirits seldom remained long under a cloud. She and 
Destries were sitting somewhat apart from the rest ; and 
Des.tries, as usual when Miss Saxthorpe was in this 
delightful mood, dropped his voice and became senti- 
mental. 

Miss Saxthorpe rose instantly and sat down beside 
Miss Donnythorne, but her animation was gone. Destries’s 
words, quite harmless and often heard before, had reminded 
her of her condition of dependence, and she was in no 
mood to be lively. Later on Destries discovered her alone, 
and, with his entire manner changed from its impetuous 
frivolity into one of seriousness, said to her in a tone 
which demanded her attention, — 

“ Lorna, I love you. Is there any hope for me ? I can- 
not offer you much of a position and home ; but if you are 
willing to take me for better or worse, you will save me 
from a moral ruin, and, besides, I love you, Lorna, better 
than any one ever can.” 

Miss Saxthorpe was taken by surprise from the serious 
way in which he spoke. She discovered in that moment 
that of the two men life with Destries, whatever the dis- 
comfort, would be preferable to a brilliant alliance with 
Donnythorne ; but she would not admit even to herself 
that she loved him; She was not prepared to make her 
decision so suddenly; and, instead of answering Destries 
as he deserved, she tried to affect that he was talking in 


254 


GOSSIP OF THE CAP/P BEES. 


his old frivolous way, and she replied with pretended scorn 
and levity. He looked at her half sternly and said, — 

“ You are heartless, I believe. I have laid bare my 
whole heart to you, — it is the best part of me, — and you 
laugh at the gift and ridicule the giver.” Destries could 
not possibly have sought a better means of giving Miss 
Saxthorpe a chance to forego her decision as to her 
future. She replied angrily, — 

“ How dare you speak so to me } Was it to insult me 
that you followed me from town .? ” 

He felt baffled. Was it impossible for this superb 
creature to ever take him seriously ? Not realizing what 
he did, he seized her hand, and, towering over Miss Sax- 
thorpe, like a Greek god of war, he said passionately, — 

“ Lorna, you wilfully misunderstand me. This sort of 
thing is ruining my life. I want to know once for all, will 
you marry me ? I will never ask you again. That I love 
you, you know only too well ; but I will not be played fast 
and loose with like this. You must choose between me 
and Donnythorne. I cannot give you all that he can, but 
I can give you a love that cold man is incapable of. I 
know I have no right to ask you to share poverty with me, 
but it is hard sometimes for a man to control his feelings. 
I am unable to. Lorna, you have the power of reforming 
my whole life ; you would be my guardian angel. End this 
folly and tell me will you, or will you not, marry me ? ” 
Her anger was no longer feigned. Coldly and haughtily 
she drew herself up ; he had angered her beyond endurance, 
and she was determined to make him suffer. 

“ Captain Destries, I thank you for your kind offer, but, 
under the very extraordinary circumstances in which you 
have presented it, I must decline to consider it at all.” The 
tears were in her eyes ; she felt as if she were less and 


A DAUGHTER OF BABYLOH. 


255 


less able to extricate herself from the relentless grasp of 
the Donnythornes, and turning angrily on him as she left 
the room she hissed, “ How dare you ? In the Major’s 
apartment, too, it was cowardly ! ” 

The cave which it was proposed to explore was about a 
mile from the hotel, and was reached by rambling over 
the plateau some hundred feet above the sea, and then by 
climbing down fifty feet of almost perpendicular rock to a 
ledge of natural formation, which made an easy path to 
the entrance of the cave. 

The plateau was covered for a great distance with dwarf 
cacti and remarkable bowlders of perforated limestone 
which gave it an uncanny appearance. The rock-path 
leading to the cave came abruptly to an end. Some con- 
vulsion of nature (for the coral crust of the island rested 
on a volcanic base) had in pre-historic world changes hol- 
lowed out of the side of the cliff a vast space resembling 
a gigantic amphitheatre. The weather had blackened the 
face of the cliff, which greatly added to its appearance. On 
rich tropic days the brilliancy of sea and sky tinged the 
immense amphitheatre a deep blue-black, giving it a beau- 
tiful but withal a weird effect ; in dark or stormy weather 
this magnificent threshold of the cave presented a black 
and threatening aspect. 

Beyond the first few yards no ray of light from the out- 
side world penetrated. The floor was perfectly smooth 
and covered with fine coral sand, as if at one time the sea 
had found entrance. The cave expanded and rose immedi- 
ately fully sixty feet, from the roof of which hung stupen- 
dous stalactites. For a long distance the cave held to 
these magnificent proportions, and then narrowed into a 
corridor of about ten feet in height, and stretched beyond, 
far into the bowels of the island, in black, silent, unex- 


256 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


plored space. Bones of Caribs and goats had been dis- 
covered here, but the memento-seekers had almost 
depleted the hoard of ages. There were similar caves in 
the island whose furthermost recesses had never been 
explored, and the mystery concerning the formation of 
which had puzzled many scientists. 

This especial cave was the most interesting and the 
most accessible to the Donnythornes. 

The party consisting of a few other friends of the 
Major’s, equipped with guides and torches, started across 
the plateau at mid-day. The sea was stretched in an oily 
calm beneath a cloudless, brazen sky in which the sun 
burned with terrific fury. The rocks were scorching to 
the feet, and, as not a breath stirred, the heat was intense 
and overpowering. 

“ This is the stillest day I think I ever felt in the 
tropics,” said the Major. 

“ Oh, it is nothing. We have this sort of weather often 
at this season in Antigua. We call it earthquake weather,” 
replied Miss Saxthorpe. 

“ Please don’t suggest such horrible thoughts. Miss Sax- 
thorpe,” said one of the party. “ But earthquakes are of 
too rare occurrence here to apprehend one. The last 
shock was a slight one and was nearly a century back.” 

On entering the cave the guides gave a lighted torch to 
each person, and the chief guide, an old negro, said, — 

“ Please, ladies and gem’men, keep clos’ togedder. De 
cave am very dark and big, and white people as well as 
black can lose dere way.” 

This caution was heeded at first by all ; but Miss Sax- 
thorpe, wearying of the too close proximity of the Major, 
decided to explore for herself. 

“ Oh, see here,” she cried, ‘Ovhat vandalism! — Susie 


A DAUGHTER OF BABVLOJV. 


257 


Potts Van Winkle. Bismarckville, Indiana, U.S.A. Well, 
she evidently intends not to be forgotten ; but what a 
wretch she must be to have broken off this stalactite ! 
Oh, Miss Donnythorne, the place is covered with names, 
and quantities of stalactites are broken off ! ” 

“Yes, mistress, de Yankees does come here, and dey 
write dere names on de wall and break off stones to de- 
member de place. Dey is funny white people, ’truf dey 
is ; ” and the old negro, urging them to keep together, led 
the way into the furthermost explored recesses of the cave. 

On the return, and where the sun once more flooded in 
and dazzled them. Miss Saxthorpe stopped and cried, — 

“I have left my hat on the bench where we halted. It 
was so hot I took it off and forgot it. I am going back 
for it. I can easily find my way, and I am not afraid;” 
and the faint flicker of her torch could be seen growing paler 
as she vanished into the darkness. 

The Major and Destries both started to follow her ; but 
in his haste the Major stumbled and fell, and when he rose 
and relighted his torch there was no sign of Destries or 
Miss Saxthorpe. Irritable and silent he rejoined the party 
at the mouth of the cave. 

Destries caught up with Miss Saxthorpe, and they went 
on in silence. Where the cave contracted there was a 
long bench placed for the convenience of explorers, and it 
was at this halting-place that Miss Saxthorpe had left 
her hat. Just as they approached it Destries broke the 
silence. 

“ We are nearly there.” 

“ Why did you follow me ? ” she replied coldly. “ It 
was quite unnecessary.” 

“You said yesterday I was a coward. I must, for my 
honor’s sake, prove to you the contrary. To have let you 


258 


GOSS IP OF THE CAP/BP EES. 


come here alone would have been cowardly. I am sorry 
that my attempt to remove the stigma on my character 
has been disagreeable to you.” As he spoke they reeled 
against one another. 

“ Captain Destries, that w'as a slight earthquake shock ! 
Do you think it safe to go on for the hat ? ” 

A weird, echoing noise reached them as if it came from 
a great distance. It was the guide halloing to them to 
return. Miss Saxthorpe looked at her companion. She 
was ghastly pale in the dim light of the torches, but she 
said with an attempt at a laugh, — 

“ Really, now, this is an adventure. I quite agree with 
you. Captain Destries, Rumor for once is correct: the 
cave is decidedly wonderful. But don’t you think we had 
better try to get out of this ? ” The shock had quite 
passed, and had been so slight that it had scarcely 
alarmed him. He looked at her, and his eyes seemed 
to pierce the darkness and brand themselves into her 
brain. 

Miss Saxthorpe never forgot that look. They were 
standing still and waiting for the guide to approach, whose 
weird calling came nearer and nearer. 

“ I think there is no need for alarm,” he said. “ The 
guide will soon be here ; I will leave you with him. I 
intend to go on to the bench for your hat. It is but a few' 
steps farther on.” 

“ Pray do not. Captain Destries ! Really, the hat is of 
no consequence.” . She dared not say, “ Do not leave 
me ; I am dying of fear.” Her pride refrained her, and 
she dreaded his cynical reply. 

“ Miss Saxthorpe, it really does require nerve to ven- 
ture dow-n that narrow corridor, if but a few yards. How- 
ever, it seems to me that by doing so I can best prove 


A DAUG//TEJ^ OF BABYLON. 


259 


my courage, which no one before has ever dared to 
impugn.” 

He raised his voice and shouted to the guide ; the old 
negro's torch was glimmering faintly in the distance. Miss 
Saxthorpe vehemently begged him to forget her words of 
yesterday : she retracted everything she had ever said to 
wound him — and would they go back and meet the guide.? 
Destries only answered bitterly, — 

“No; you meant what you said. Your words rankled 
deeper than you imagined. I must prove to you that a 
coward may still try to redeem his character ; and though 
you rejected my love I will oblige you to respect 

They were leaning against the wall of the cave, and the 
guide had just joined them. Miss Saxthorpe was about 
to reply to Destries’ last words, when the earth trembled 
again violently, and nearly pitched them over, the whole 
cave seeming to yield to the seismic motion. 

Moments of extreme danger often bring out noble quali- 
ties in us ; and as when a drowning man is said to live 
over his whole life in one lightning flash of thought, so 
in the swaying darkness that could be felt, and in the 
horror of her situation. Miss Saxthorpe saw the vanity 
of her life, the rocks on which her pride would wreck 
her. 

The love that had burned all along in her heart for 
Destries, completely unknown to her, suddenly burst forth 
in full flame. She clutched him convulsively, and said 
hoarsely, — 

“ Arthur Destries, I swear to you I did not mean to 
injure you. Oh, forgive me, forgive me ! I love you ! ” 
Destries took her hands from his arm and said to the 
guide, who was tottering with fear, — 

“ Lead this lady out of the cave at once. I am going 


26 o 


GOSS IP OP THE CAP/P BEES. 


on a few yards to the bench for her hat. Don’t wait for 
me ; 1 shall overtake you.” 

He turned to Miss Saxthorpe, and, still holding her 
hands in his, said, — 

“ Listen to me ; I will not detain you a moment. Lorna, 
I loved you as I saw you. I had nothing but my love to 
offer you. You took it and tortured it and ridiculed it, 
and still it survived. I believed you far beyond the reach 
of the sordidness of society. I loved not your beauty and 
wit ; I loved the woman. Suddenly my eyes were opened. 
You were playing me off against Donnythorne. It was 
a game that could not go on forever, no matter how skil- 
fully you played ; and at the end I, whom I was wild 
enough to think you preferred, would be discarded. It 
was intolerable. I offered you my very life yesterday, 
hoping my idol would not be broken, that your nobility 
would save you — well, you know what you said. O 
Lorna, why did you not tell me this sooner } I can’t 
depend upon you. Your admission has been wrung from 
you by fear.” 

“You are cruel indeed : you were not always so. You 
will listen to no explanation, then ? Is all over between 
us ? ” Her voice now was strong and cold. 

“ It is my fate to love you, Lorna ; but how can I tell 
but that you may yet beg me to release you ? Donny- 
thorne may, after all, make you happier.” 

She was like a block of marble, and her words came 
with a gasp. 

“ Be it so, then. You cannot trust me. You are right. 
It has been left to you of all others to show me what I 
am.” 

Her voice ended in a sob. Destries was not proof 
against this. Throwing his arms about her, he strained 
her rigid form to his breast. 


A DAUG//TER OF BABYLOA^. 26 1 

“ Ah, Lorna, forgive me. I cannot resist you. I would 
rather hold you thus in my arms one moment, though I 
knew you would jilt me. But you shall never say in your 
heart I am a coward again, even though you do not mean 
it. I will prove to you I am not,'’ and he broke away 
and disappeared down the narrow corridor in search of 
Miss Saxthorpe’s hat. 

She leaned against the wall of the cave, speechless. 

“ O mistress, do come ; massa too mad ! Fear some time 
turn de head, it do,” said the guide, himself chattering 
with fear, and trying to lead her away. 

“ Stop ! I shall stay here till the gentleman returns ; ” 
and no entreaty of the negro could make her move. “ I 
can at least show him a proof of my love,” she thought. 

It seemed to her as if he would never appear. She 
wondered if he could have lost his way in the darkness. 

The shocks, which had ceased, recurred again, and 
shook the entire cave. 

“O mistress, please come away, do,” implored the 
guide ; but Miss Saxthorpe moved not. Her torch had 
fallen from her hand, and in the rumbling roar of awak- 
ened Nature she was seized with terrible fear as she 
realized her position. Unable to control herself, her voice 
broke into a wild shriek, — 

“ Arthur, Arthur, come to me ! ” 

The guide fell on his knees and prayed. 

Uestries’ voice, loud and clear, echoed in the dis- 
tance, — 

“ I have got the hat, but my torch has gone out. Keep 
up your courage, sweetheart; I will be with you in a 
moment.” His voice came nearer and nearer, and from 
the light of the old negro’s torch Miss Saxthorpe saw the 
tall form of Destries groping towards her. 


262 


GOSSIP OF THE CAP/BBEES. 


She stretched out her arms, and was about to run to him, 
when she was thrown to the ground. For an instant she 
experienced a sensation of being raised in the air, and 
heard her name shrieked in agony. 

Destries had been ground to atoms : the corridor had 
ceased to exist. 

After an intense mental shock the spirit often becomes 
as it were paralyzed. The old likes and dislikes, every 
detail of the past that felt the imprint of the ^mind and 
went to form the character, all become apathetic. Thought 
and action are a burden to the nature ; indifference blasts 
the soul with sterility. Thus it was with Miss Saxlhorpe. 

She was found in a swoon several hours later by Major 
Donnythorne and a rescue party. The old negro guide 
lay beside her dead, probably from fright. 

Of Destries there was no trace : he had been sealed up 
in the corridor by the volcanic upheaval, which merged 
the four sides of that portion of the cave into one solid 
whole. The main part of the cave itself was narrowed 
down so as to only leave kneeling room. The earthquake 
had devastated nigh to annihilation a neighboring island. 

Miss Saxthorpe in a day or two returned to town, and 
Mrs. Clarendon discovered in time the last scene with 
Destries. 

Mrs. Clarendon, who, though extremely worldly, still 
had a romance in her own life, fe^c -render toward her 
charge, and for a very long time made nu reference to her 
about the Major. However, she told Miss Donnythorne 
what she had’gleaned from Miss Saxthorpe as to her regard 
for the unfortunate Destries, and that lady told her brother. 

It nowise deterred him from his intention of winning 
her, for he was very much in love, and he said he pre- 


A 1 ) AUG /ITER OF EABVLO/V. 263 

ferred a dead rival to a living one. So between them all 
they set out to ensnare Miss Saxthorpe. 

Ever since that fateful day when she had looked into 
her heart, and discovered a great, all-powerful passion 
there, only to have it in the joy of discovery swept for- 
ever from her grasp, she had become apathetic and abso- 
lutely indifferent to her lot. 

“You can all do with me as you will, but I shall never 
love you. Major Donnythorne. I am incapable of any- 
thing but indifference to everybody and everything hence- 
forth.” 

So they were married ; for Donnythorne believed that 
she would grow to love him in time through her children. 

Mrs. Clarendon was determined that the wedding should 
be brilliant, and brilliant beyond all the colony had ever 
seen it was. 

The nuptial knot was tied at the Cathedral by His 
Lordship the Bishop. The nave was lined with troops, 
who formed an arch of bayonets, beneath which the bridal 
party walked, and the music was a grand combination of 
the regimental band and the organ. 

Mrs. Clarendon, of course, had invited all society to 
witness what was to her a triumph. 

His Excellency gave Miss Saxthorpe away, and very 
pale and cold she looked, but very, very lovely. 

The Major looked- distinguished and proud, and his 
sister frh grande aame. 

Mrs. Clarendon was exultant and superb, her immense 
form clothed in bristling brocade. This was indeed her 
hour of triumph; and her enemy. Lady Claude Vernon, 
levelled many a sharp sneer at her as she stood there 
unconscious of that lady’s ridicule, though she guessed her 
thoughts. 


264 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


For Lady Claude Vernon cannot forgive her that Miss 
Saxthorpe instead of her own daughter should have 
caught the Major. 

So Miss Saxthorpe was married ; and many a girl, and 
many a mother besides Lady Claude Vernon, envied her, 
as to the glorious music she walked with her husband 
under that splendid archway of glittering steel and through 
a serried rank of troops. 

The Major retired soon after his marriage, and again 
and again we in the colony who read the society papers 
hear of the furor that Mrs. Donnythorne creates at Home. 

We hear of the sumptuous hospitality of Donnythorne 
Manor ; we hear of her gowns and her diamonds, of her 
beauty and her spotless fame. 

But the papers tell us nothing of her happiness. Has 
Donnythorne conquered her love ? Have her children 
touched the mother in her, and broken the steel bands that 
bind her mother’s heart ? Has Destries’ death-shriek, as 
the stony daikness sealed him in a living tomb, ceased 
ringing in her ears ? Go, stand in Hyde Park some splen- 
did .June day, and, as she rolls by, see if you can read Love 
in the beautiful, passionless face ! 


HIS EXCELLENCY LEAVES US. 


“ Out upon the wharves they came, 

Knight and burgher, lord and dame.^' 

The Lady of Shalott : Tennys:on. 



HIS EXCELLENCY LEAVES US. 


No, there never was such lamentation ; not even when 
Don Quixote mourned over the sorry enchantment of his 
peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. Nor did the daughters of 
Zion, harping by the waters of Babylon, carry heavier 
hearts than we did when His Excellency left us. 

The newspapers wailed long, dismal Jeremiads. They 
told us we need never expect such another Governor, — one 
who would let the Vestries have full swing, and who would 
applaud a rabid native speech in the House of Assembly 
as if he quite agreed with the speaker. 

The Hospitals and Almshouse Boards were palpitating 
with fear as to whether his successor would wish to see 
their accounts and inspect their management, — a thing 
which His Excellency never did. The clerks in the Public 
Offices began to get their books in order and be prepared 
for an unexpected examination, and added their querulous 
wails to the general regret ; and the whole army of pre- 
ferment-seekers and companies wanting the House to 
grant subsidies and charity bazaars, dramatic entertain-, 
ments, school fetes, and everything that flourishes Under 
the Distinguished Patronage of an Excellency, were -in 
extremis. 

The lamentation was genuine, universal, and selfish. 
He had been with us for so many years that we had come 

267 


268 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


to think we should always have him. He had lived at 
Government House among his shells and sponges, and had 
left the turbulent little colony to jog on unheeded. And 
for this thing alone we, the lucky ones, were in these last 
days turning over in our hands the bright medals a 
grateful House had stamped in his honor. 

Yes, that notice in the Official Gazette that he was 
about to retire had come upon the colony like a bolt out 
of a clear sky. And then how suddenly did we find what 
a great administrator he was ! what a patron to society ! 
what a back-bone to charity ! We had known all this 
before, of course, but then a thing is never truly appre- 
ciated till it is lost. 

We have inherited from our British ancestors, to a 
marked degree, the taste — or shall I call it prerogative ^ — 
of lecturing our political leaders. 

It is called the Freedom of the Press. And a very 
reasonable and wholesome attribute of political liberty it 
is, too, if not carried to a pestilential, vulgar, radical 
excess. 

The Foiee of the People and The Tnmipet of Liberty had 
occasionally sounded clarion blasts in their columns as to 
the inefficiency of an Excellency who would postpone 
the reading of the Drainage Bill to inspect , a new species 
of conch. And once The Voice of the People had shouted 
for two weeks in African effervescence that the Depart- 
ment of Customs urgently needed renovating, and that 
•we should go eti masse to Government House and scatter 
to the four winds of heaven the French laces and French 
silks that Her Excellency had secretly smuggled into the 
colony for the benefit of her favorites. 

You would have thought that we were living a hundred 
years back in the thick of the Revolution, and that Her 


HIS EXCELLENCY LEAVES US. 


269 


Excellency was a queen plundering the revenues of her 
people. When the Voice became hoarse and could 
shout no more, the Trmnpet took up the cry, and some 
hysterical people doubled-barred their doors and windows 
and even talked of taking refuge in the harbor. 

But His Excellency only smiled significantly and 
smoothed the throat of the hoarse Voice with a delect- 
able balsam, known with us as a “ magistracy.” There- 
upon the grateful Voice broke into a torrent of fiery abuse 
of the Tni?7ipet's revolutionary blasts, and dashed that 
I'rumpet to the ground, where it lay broken and noiseless. 
But that all happened long ago, and the colony was just 
trying to find what sort of a chap the new Governor was. 

Well, he was a cheery, very lovable old man, with the 
easiest going disposition in the world. He believed that 
people were happiest when they did as they pleased. If 
the V/ater Works Company wanted a subsidy, why shouldn’t 
he grant it ? It was a very necessary institution. If the 
clerks in the Government Offices were flurried by the 
visits of such a lofty personage as an Excel Idiicy, he for 
one would give them no cause for nervous starts and 
sweaty suspense. If the House of Assembly could legis- 
late to suit itself, and the Vestries could levy taxes at 
which no one grumbled, and the Chief-Justice and Colo- 
nial Secretary wanted a twelve months’ leave at Home on 
full pay, let them all be satisfied. A holiday was good for 
everybody, and with empty pockets it would be useless. 
If a troupe of ballet-dancers left behind by a miserable 
circus company wished to kick under his distinguished 
patronage, it didn’t hurt him, and it most decidedly helped 
them. 

So the town was plastered with huge red and blue and 
yellow posters, informing the public that Mademoiselle 


270 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


Kickalini Can-Can, late of La Scala Theatre, Milan (they 
always came from La Scala, you know) , with her unique 
troupe of dames du ballet^ would writhe and revolve like 
tops and kick Under the Very Exalted Patronage of His 
Excellency. 

Now, if he were so very susceptive to the comforts of 
others, why shouldn’t he be allowed to do as he pleased, 
especially as he had no desire to injure anybody ? And 
he did do as he pleased ; and so everything in the colony, 
every department of official life, was basking in a very 
pleasurable independence. 

His Excellency lived at Government House, at peace 
with the world and satisfied with his shells. He played 
the part of figure-head to perfection. You see that the 
reasons why the whole colony bewailed his departure were 
palpable. 

But apart from selfish motives, everybody truly regretted 
it. It was impossible not to love him, with his tall form, 
and thick snow-white hair, and the gentle blue eyes that 
always looked at you so friendly out of his honest Irish 
face. Oh, how we should miss him ! His clemency was 
notorious. 

Glendairy, the massive prison, rising imposingly from its 
scarped, wind-blackened coral cliffs, was an almost useless 
tenement during his reign. You scarcely ever saw nowa- 
days along the great white dusty roads the bands of 
chained convicts with flat, sullen African faces covered 
with the fine dust of the stones, which they monotonously 
broke all day under the torrid sun. 

Ah, how the poor leprous wretches at the Lazaretto 
would miss his weekly visit and the cheery, encouraging 
voice ! No more was his carriage, with its white and silver 
liveries, to rumble along in funeral processions, nor would 


HIS EXCELLENCY LEAVES US. 


271 


his eyes glisten as his sympathetic hand pressed yours in 
the thick of some great trouble ; for His Excellency was 
everybody’s friend. 

The days between the official announcement of his 
departure and the last one of his sojourn among us were 
days of high-strung suspense, which is always so exhausting. 
His farewell receptions at Government House had been 
packed and jammed to the doors with people eager for a 
last hand-shake. The impressive scene in the House of 
Assembly was over, when it unanimously thanked-him and 
praised him, in the name of the people, for the beneficent 
administration. 

The Subscription Ball in the Public Buildings was over, 
when His Excellency, in a husky voice which broke several 
times, told us how much he loved the colony, how happy 
we had been together in it, how he should always remem- 
ber us and pray for our success ; and he said he would 
give his splendid collar, which he wore as a Knight of the 
Order of St. Michael and St. George, if he could turn back 
the wheels of Time to his first arrival among us. 

Well, the last morning had dawned bright and balmy. 
The sun, coming up behind the bread-fruit trees and cab- 
bage-palms on the hilltops of St. John’s, made the dew 
which lay heavy on the cane-fields sparkle like a thousand 
emeralds. 

The trade-winds swept down the enchanting valley of 
St. George ; they passed over the feathery tops of the canes, 
which they rustled together gently like the sound of sigh- 
ing maidens, and they rippled the water in Carlisle Bay, 
where among the bobbing ships the huge Royal Mail 
Steamer which was to take His Excellency home rolled 
witli a serene and stately motion. 

All day long at intervals the cannon at the garrison bat- 


2J2 


GOSSIP OF THE CARIBBEES. 


tery boomed solemnly, — a rare honor to an Excellency, — 
and crowds at an early hour began to throng the streets 
and wharves. 

At last the royal ensign at Government House is run 
down ; the black sentries in their rich uniforms salute him 
for the last time ; the gates clang behind him. The mounted 
police plunge ahead to clear the road with drawn 
sabres, their black faces grinning horribly as they 
drive the people into the gutters, a veritable cavalry 
charge. - 

As His Excellency appears bowing to the right and the 
left and waving his handkerchief sadly, there goes up a 
mighty shout mingled with the weird and mournful dron- 
ing of the native women, which they accompany with fran- 
tic swayings and writhings of the body, emblematic of exces- 
sive grief. The African’s heart is easily touched. His Ex- 
cellency seems touched, too, and keeps his white head 
bare. Probably he recognizes the fact instinctively that 
he is in the presence of a majesty as divine as that of the 
royal lady he represents, the People’s Majesty. 

As he goes on, the Constitution Road behind him closes 
in thick with an effervescing multitude. 

In front of the Public Buildings, in Trafalgar Square, 
the entire garrison on the station is drawn up for a last 
review. The Bands of the “ Royal Alfred ” and the West 
India regiment play “ For he’s a jolly good fellow” and 
“ Auld lang syne.” And the enterprising editor of the 
Triwipet of Liberty^ who has long since forgotten that 
he ever blew blasts against the corruption of Government 
House fit to knock down the walls of Jericho, sends up 
into the air, near the Nelson statue, one hundred little 
balloons, which notify everybody in bright red letters that 
the Trumpet of Liberty vvill receive subscriptions to pre- 


ms EXCELLENCY LEA FES US. 


273 


sent His Excellency with a solid silver tea-service ! Yes, 
the moment is hysterical. 

And now His Excellency steps into the launch of the 
“ Royal Alfred,” and the blue-jackets man the oars, and 
the cannon boom, and the drums beat, and the people 
shout. 

It is a solemn moment for His Excellency. His public ca- 
reer is about to close : the pleasure, the adulation, the power 
of exalted office are past to him now forever. He has run 
the allotted three-score years and ten, and run them bravely 
and well. The remnant that is left to him of this life he 
will spend in retirement, in extinguishment, among his 
conchs and seaweeds, peaceably as he may. 

For him standing uncovered in “ Royal Alfred’s ” boat- 
launch the glamour of life is fading. He witnesses the 
passing of his joys, his friendships, his opportunities of 
doing good. He realizes that he is an old man. Ah, me ! 
old age, to which we are all drifting, has forced him to 
move on, to make room for youth, whether it be good or 
evil, pressing on likewise in its turn to extinguishment. 
No more shall he hear those fervent “ God bless hims ! ” that 
popular acclaim, that outburst of loyal love. The manly 
old head falls forward on his breast ; the tears stream down 
his cheeks. 

Pull away, blue-jackets, pull away ! further delay is heart- 
rending now. 

And the shouts grow fainter, and the waving handker- 
chiefs become indiscernible against the white warehouses 
on the wharf. His Excellency is out in the bay now, 
dodging in among the barques and brigantines and schoon- 
ers, and flags are run up and down, and foreign voices 
shout. 

Now and then, as the evening breeze lulls for a moment. 


274 


GOSS/P OF THE CARIBDEES. 


a gay echo comes over the water from the bands in Trafal- 
gar Square. Have they forgotten him so soon, then? 

The Royal Mail Steamer heaves up her anchor and sets 
her nose towards the east, where the sky and sea rush 
together in dark -purple unison. Sadness broods in silence, 
and overhead the white stars gleam remotely. 


Xait, Sons & Company’s 


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